Lies 0 Thefts 0
Marathi · 2020 · A Farce

Choricha Mamla

Who Is the Real Chor?

By Vinaay Patil5 min read

A cartoon poster: a pink building with the Marathi title Choricha Mamla, coiled telephone cords looping across an orange-yellow sky, and the whole cast running towards the viewer in a panic, from a bride in a red sari to the grinning thief with his sling bag and a scruffy street dog.

Fittingly for its name, the 2020 Marathi film Choricha Mamla stole its title. It lifted it from an iconic song in Gammat Jammat (1987), which had itself borrowed it from the 1976 film Choricha Mamla. A Makar Sankranti release, it was probably the last Marathi film to get a proper run in theatres before the lockdown began.

Exhibit A

A Lie Needs Another Lie

Marathi films and plays have long had fun with one particular farce: a lie that needs another lie, which leads to yet another lie. It works best when the characters have to lie about who their husband or wife is. From Ashok Saraf's Shejari Shejari to Chetan Dalvi's play Pati Sagale Uchapati, this farce gets played to the fullest. The idea may well be imported; some trace it back to the 1964 Hollywood comedy Good Neighbor Sam. But this kind of comedy isn't concept-heavy, it's performance-heavy. The farce isn't carried by the dialogue so much as by the hesitation in delivering it. The characters' bodies and faces convey the farce, not the text.

At a flat's front door, a nervous man in a lavender shirt introduces a startled woman in a red dress to a suspicious neighbour, while behind them a wobbly tower of cardboard masks labelled with excuses like just a friend, business trip and cousin rises to the ceiling, tied up in a telephone cord, and a small dog watches from the doormat.
Just a friend. Then a cousin. Then a colleague. The tower always wins.
A retro Marathi comedy poster collage: red-roofed neighbouring houses under palm trees, with the Marathi titles Shejari Shejari and Pati Sagale Uchapati, and a crowd of caricatured husbands and wives pulling exaggerated faces.
शेजारी शेजारी Next door, the wrong spouse is always one knock away.
Exhibit B

The Moral Chor

Choricha Mamla builds another layer of farce on top: a moral chor. He's a thief who steals only enough to cover the monthly expenses, nothing more, and he's the most loyal husband you'll ever meet. This thief accidentally drops into a pond of characters with infidelity issues. Everyone is cheating on someone, the thief becomes the prop that covers their tracks, and hilarity ensues.

So who is the real chor here?

Two panels. Left: the thief does his monthly accounts at home with a ledger of rent, ration and school fees, thinking only what we need, no more, that's ethics, while his wife smiles beside him with a mug that says honest chor. Right: a cut-through of a building where couples in every flat, a businessman and his secretary, a doctor and his neighbour, a politician and his aide, grab at the falling thief.
That's ethics! The most honest man in the building is the burglar.

The film is a light breeze to watch and thoroughly enjoyable. Nothing about it is memorable, other than the pleasure of watching it.

Exhibit C

Why Do We Love a Good Lie?

Why do we like such films? Maybe because every one of us, at school, in college or at the office, has told a believable lie and felt the rush of escaping by the skin of our teeth. It might be the age-old flat tyre that made us late, or the "work meeting" that was really a drink or two. Everyone lies. And somewhere at the back of our minds, we know the other person isn't quite buying it and is just playing along. The fear of being caught, then the escape: it's an adrenaline rush. And the rush doesn't end in the moment. It becomes a kissa, a story retold again and again among friends: "Remember the time sir almost caught us snacking in class?"

Two panels. Left: in a 1995 classroom, two schoolboys hide behind a mathematics textbook stuffing snacks into their mouths as the teacher with a cane turns from the blackboard. Right: the same two, now grown men, raise drinks in a bar while one says into his phone, yes, I'm in a meeting right now.
Yes, I'm in a meeting. Same two boys, same grin, twenty years apart.
Exhibit D

Liars, and Then There Are Liars

Then again, there are liars, and then there are liars. Say you tell everyone you fell off your cycle into a heap of rocks, when in fact you were riding third seat on your underage, unlicensed friend's Kinetic when he lost control. Is that a big lie or a small one? Who gets to decide?

Two panels. Left: three schoolboys squeezed onto one blue scooter swerve towards a heap of rocks in a cloud of dust. Right: one of them, bandaged on the head and arm, stands beside a fallen bicycle explaining to his worried parents, while through the window his friends quietly push the scooter away.
He fell off his cycle. Officially.

The verdict, please: big lie or small lie?

And there are lies, and then there are elaborate lies. You and a friend stand at a coin-box phone and take turns calling each other's homes, repeating the same lines word for word: "Oh, he's not there? I just called to ask whether he's going to school or studying at home, because the teachers are away at a seminar for the next three days." Then you go home, listen to your parents repeat the question back to you, and dispassionately agree to stay home and study. Where on the spectrum does that lie fall? Who knows!

Under the title The Coin-Box Conspiracy, two schoolboys in uniform huddle at a red STD ISD PCO coin-box phone on a shop counter, one speaking very seriously into the receiver while the other reads lines from a scrap of paper, a thought bubble above them showing the pair lounging at home with comics and the television, as the moustached shopkeeper looks on knowingly.
STD · ISD · PCO One script, two phone calls, three days off school.

Where on the spectrum does the coin-box lie fall?

Exhibit E

Who Is the Real Chor?

Choricha Mamla sits somewhere on that spectrum too. Its thief lies to survive and steals only what the month needs. Its respectable couples lie for pleasure and steal each other's trust. The film never asks us to judge any of them. It just lets us sit back, watch everyone scramble to keep their story straight, and quietly remember our own coin-box calls. Maybe that's why this farce never gets old: at some point, every one of us has been the chor in our own little mamla.

In front of a pink building beside a lotus pond, the grinning thief tiptoes away with a sling bag stuffed with cash, surrounded by the other characters, a suspicious man with binoculars, a startled bride, a woman texting, a smirking man on a red phone and a woman hushing with a finger, while thought bubbles above them show secret couples and a big question mark.
A pond full of cheaters. And one honest thief, tiptoeing through the middle.

The Breakdown

Charge sheet, filed against one very enjoyable farce

  • Performance-led farce90%
  • The moral chor95%
  • Light breeze95%
  • Memorable takeaways20%
  • Kissa value99%

Final count: 0 lies, 0 thefts. The thief is outnumbered.

Where to Watch

No coin-box needed. Just tell us where you are, honestly.

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Availability data from JustWatch via TMDB. Platforms change their line-ups often, so check before you settle in.

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