Cast: Rishi Rehan, Avantika, Ninad Kamat, Himani Shivpuri, Prem Chopra, Raj Babbar, Chunky Pandey, Shakti Kapoor (Guest appearance); Director: Rajesh Ram Singh; Ratings: *

2008 seems to be a year for fresh faces in Bollywood. Even the well-known producer Pahlaj Nihalani tried introducing two new faces through his latest flick Khusboo but the garbage, the film showcases, fails in hinting at the fragrance it has been intended to spread.

Raghunathan Iyer (Rishi Rehan) is a project manager at a multinational company. Being very with his job profile, his boss (Raj Babbar) wants to send him to New York but due to some emergency at a project in Chandigar he has forget about New York and move for Chandigar. Raghu meets Pinky (Avantika) in Chandigar and despite having no faith in love he falls for Pinky (just like all the logically foolish love stories).

The representative of modernism in Chandigar, Pinky slips straight to Raghu’s bed at their third meeting and after two months she returns only to say that she is pregnant with Raghu’s child. She asks Raghu to meet her parents once so that she can later on easily tell them the reality about the child. Raghu marries Pinky immediately after meeting her parents. But they keep their marriage a secret. When Pinky’s parents come to know about their marriage, they, like typical Punjabi, come to Raghu’s office to kill him. Being the only daughter in the family, Pinky easily wins the heart of her five brothers. But her father, subadar Arminder Singh (Prem Chopra) forsakes the relationship with her. Afterwards, the story witnesses a lot of turns and twists and reaches the happy ending (as it’s very usual).

If films are always prone to have one or the other fault, Khusboo is the uncrowned king among flawed entertainers. It’s really sad that despite having keen eyes to find a better moment, the film doesn’t offer anything praiseworthy. Including direction and first appearance of Rishi and Avantika, all are very weak. It’s quite unfortunate that all the talents, including the lyrics by Javed Akhtar, music by Adnan Sami and Bappi Lahiri and well known voices of established singers, are simply wasted just for the sake of the film. The film seems more an unsolved puzzle than an entertainer. The reason behind the modern Pinky, willingly sleeping with an almost unknown guy and clad in modern outfits, declining to deport for New York just for the sake of her desh, is really beyond any psychological understanding. It looks really bakwas to see Pinky thinking about giving birth to her child in this nation only and more than that, her intention of tagging her child as Shikh appears more intended and unfortunate fallacy. If she can ignore cast at the time of marrying Raghu, how come she insists on the same issue during the birth of her child!

The film is completely an unsolved mystery with so many questions like this. It creates question on the director Rajesh Ram and more than that Khusboo is a big question mark on the career of Pahlaj Nihalani.

Enriched with Punjabi culture, the film looks more a Punjabi flick than Hindi one. Being so inclined to Punjabi traditions, the film should not be able to pull the Hindi audience. Albeit, watching the film is completely dependant on the audience, managing the fragrance in Khusboo will surely be an impossible task for them.