So, once upon a time there was a boy, here called Noor, who lived in this innocent place called Srinagar( shot beautifully) where fierce militants with wounds( Ajay Devgn, hard to decipher, but something about Army does get mentioned) accosted children like him in the middle of the night and demanded help. Noor doesn’t think twice which, as we know from Great Expectations, sets one chapter in his life.( Read: Fitoor music review: Sporadically Brilliant)
The other gets started when Noor and his brother-in-law get called to repair her mansion( ‘Anjuman’, no less), by Begum. There Noor meets Firdaus, who comes riding in on a horse, across snow. A sight of her red cheeks and lips, and Noor is besotted. Begum notices, and by turns encourages and snubs Noor in his growing fascination for Firdaus.( Also read: Ajay Devgn has ‘intense’ role in ‘Fitoor’)
So far, Abhishek Kapoor, who gave us a quite remarkable and solidly middle-class Kai Po Che, appears to know what he is doing. The boy cast as Noor speaks with an unmistakable Kashmiri accent, his beautiful and kind sister walks with a mysterious limp that always halts Noor in his tracks, and the brother-in-law is supportive and unobtrusive. Tabu is still getting into the act.( PHOTOS: Style file: Katrina Kaif totally rocks feminine chic)
It’s when the sister dies, in a blast, the limp never explained, Firdaus goes away, Noor gets bigger and bulkier( Aditya Kapoor never stays in clothes, upper or lower for too long) and lands in Delhi that Fitoor enters from the epoch of belief to the epoch of incredulity( the Charles Dickens line the film is fond of repeating, though never reaching this particular part) .
Financed by a mysterious benefactor, ‘the boy from Dal’ gets plonked from phiran on the lake to an artfully undone studio in midst of could-be Lodhi Garden. There is a Delhi out there where strangers open their hearts, parties, purse strings, not to mention letterheads giving their address as Sujan Singh Park, to accommodate growing artists among glowing monuments, only you may have never seen it. Meanwhile, an incredible number of foreigners keep flitting about. But what do we know?( Read: Katrina goes shopping with Fitoor co-actor Aditya Roy Kapur in Janpath, Delhi)
