Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?

About the film

Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge? (transl. Dear Guest, When Will You Leave?) is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language comedy film directed by Ashwni Dhir, and produced by Amita Pathak. Loosely based on the short story Tum Kab Jaoge, Athithi? by Sharad Joshi, the film stars Ajay Devgn, Paresh Rawal and Konkona Sen Sharma. It was released on 5 March 2010. The film was a commercial success and earned more than double its budget. It received numerous nominations at Indian award ceremonies.

Indiagames also released a mobile video game based on the film.

Plot

Puneet Bajpai (Ajay Devgn), a movie scriptwriter, lives with his Bengali interior-designer wife Munmun (Konkona Sensharma) and their six-year-old son Ayush in a high-rise apartment in Goregaon in Mumbai. Ayush repeatedly hopes for a guest to arrive at their home. The couple's happy life is upended when Lambodar Chacha (Paresh Rawal), a distant uncle of Puneet's, turns up unannounced one morning and slaps the guard, causing a commotion. Lambodar was searching for a son of his late cousin Putani (Puneet's father) and, finding Puneet, refers to him as Pappu—which he is not accustomed to—and proceeds to take over the couple's life by making unreasonable demands, gargling loudly early in the morning, eating heavily and farting loudly. The couple is at their wits' end before long, but Ayush is overjoyed.

Lambodar interferes in every aspect of their lives, from forcing the maid to quit her job after she is tired of being ordered around by him (much to Munmun's dismay), to incessantly trying to catch Puneet's attention, to bringing in strangers as newly formed friends he met on the way or calling him when he is not around. Others, however, are impressed by his display of devotion at the local temple, or his apparent ability to cure backaches by kicking the sufferer in their rear. A desperate Puneet, on one occasion, gets himself arrested so that he can complete his script without Lambodar's well-meant interference.

One day Puneet brings Lambodar to his film set, built on a grand scale and directed by the well-known Ranjeet Taneja. There, Lambodar requests an actor (Viju Khote)—Kaalia of Sholay fame—repeatedly to repeat his famous dialogue from that film (How many men were there? Two), much to the latter's vexation. A distraught Kaalia tries to escape Lambodar and reaches the set of a mansion, which is to be blown up on the count of two. However, an undeterred Lambodar once again asks Kaalia to say his dialogue, and on hearing the word 'two', the bomb operator blows up the mansion well before time, leading to an irate Taneja firing Puneet, who defends Lambodar when Taneja tries to insult him.

Production

The film was shot at Yashraj Studios, Filmistan, Film City and other locations in Mumbai. The makers bought the rights to the short story Tum Kab Jaoge, Athithi? by Sharad Joshi.

Reception

The film received average to good ratings from the critics. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama rated it 3.5 out of 5, and claimed that the film was "fun" and "frolic" for all. Komal Nahta gave it 3/5 and explained how it should be acclaimed for its family love, and the great message at the end. [The Times of India] gave it 3.0 out of 5 and claimed that the film was Neat subtle and softly funny.

Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge had an "average" opening at the box office, and took about a 35% opening, which is a typical trend for films in the family comedy/drama genre. The collections picked up through good word of mouth and sustained well at the box office for eight weeks despite competition from other films and IPL cricket tournament held during the same time. The film worked well with family audiences but did not find a large youth audience. The film did a domestic gross of ₹ 390 million. It was declared an average grosser by Box Office India.

Music

The songs featured in the film are composed by Amit Mishra and Pritam Chakraborty while the lyrics are written by Irshad Kamil. The film score was composed by Sanjoy Chowdhury. The soundtrack was released on 20 February 2010. "Aaja Aaja" and its remix are composed by Pritam while the rest were by Amit Mishra.

Adaptation

Author and cartoonist Abid Surti has sued makers of Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge claiming that the story is directly lifted from his Gujarati novel Bauter Varas No Babo published in 1976, which was later translated in Hindi as Bahatar Saal Ka Baccha. He has filed a case with The Film Writers Association (FWA) and has demanded Rs 11.5 million as compensation, the case is still pending judgment.

Sequel

A sequel to film titled Guest iin London was released on 7 July 2017.

Key details