MELBOURNE, 19 2024: In the tradition of Heer-Ranjha, Punjab’s immortal love story, ‘Shayar’ (means poet), weaves a love tale where poetry is the thread which binds lovers Satta (Satinder Sartaaj), a farmers son and Seero (Neeru Bajawa), whose words fuel Satta’s singing talent. The rather poetic and musical infatuation converts to love, but social bindings separates them. Satta has learned singing for Seero’s father, when the love blossoms. Satta’s love with music and poetry is strong amid intense longing for Seero.
The background is rural Punjab, though some of the sets look too artificial and Neeru Bajwa’s makeup overdone. Sartaaj looks composed and relaxed. At places editing could have been better and the duration trimmed.
The mix of Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi in songs and poetry is the powerful message of ‘Shayar’. The lovers are of different faiths but it never strikes, anyway. The movie will be liked by those who have a flair for poetry. No doubt, love can be both actual or Platonic. But, in ‘Shayar’ it is poetic.
I saw the movie’s premiere (courtesy MindBlowingFilms) at the Crown Village Cinemas, Melbourne and Satinder Sartaj joined fans after the movie. He is popular and took questions from fans and posed for pictures.
The Punjabi crowd was naturally electrified to see and hear from their soft-spoken favourite film-star. His show tomorrow (20 April, 2024) here is likely to be a big success.
