Cheeni Kum

Story:

Cheeni Kum is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy film directed by R. Balki and starring Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu, Paresh Rawal, Zohra Sehgal and Swini Khara.

PLOT

Buddhadev Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) is the 64-year-old owner and executive chef of Spice 6, London’s top Indian restaurant. He lives with his 85-year-old mother (Zohra Sehgal), and his only friend and confidante is his 9-year-old neighbour, ‘Sexy’ (Swini Khara), who is diagnosed with cancer. Buddha is arrogant and egocentric, often rude to his chefs and sarcastic to those around him. His confidence is crushed when during a dinner service one evening at his restaurant, a Hyderabadi Zafrani pulao gets sent back for being ‘sweet’, leading Buddha to humiliate the woman that ordered the dish, arguing that his restaurant is the finest in London. When she sends her own pulao to Buddha’s restaurant, made arguably better than at Spice 6, Buddha eventually finds the chef that prepared the dish incorrectly and fires him.

Buddha runs into the woman once again after she decides to come back to his restaurant, 34-year-old Nina Verma (Tabu) from India, and he apologises. They slowly fall in love despite their glaring contrast in age, character and attitude.

They decide to get married, and Buddha goes to Delhi to meet Nina’s father, Omprakash Verma (Paresh Rawal), conveniently leaving out the detail that Buddha is older than him. He quickly finds out and is horrified, and attempts to dissuade his daughter from marrying Buddha by going on a Gandhi-inspired hunger strike until she relents. Buddha and Nina argue over this constantly, being the main hang-up in their relationship, and Buddha leaves their home feeling heartbroken, only to also find out that Sexy has now passed away from cancer.

In the meanwhile, Omprakash has begrudgingly agreed to Buddha and Nina’s relationship, at which an overjoyed Nina comes to find Buddha at a local temple, where she finds out about Sexy as well. She consoles Buddha while he grieves his best friend, and gently lets him know that her father has changed his mind.

The final scene shows Buddha and Nina having brought Buddha’s mother and Nina’s father to Spice 6, and Buddha bonding with Omprakash over a cricket match playing near them.