''Chupke Se'' ( en, Secretly), is a 2003 Bollywood

Romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typic ...

film, directed by Shona Urvashi. It stars Zulfi Syed, Masumeh Makhija,

Rati Agnihotri Rati Agnihotri (born 10 December 1960) is an Indian actress, known for acting in Hindi, as well as in Telugu and Tamil language films. Her roles in the cult-tragedy film '' Ek Duuje Ke Liye'' (1981) and the drama film ''Tawaif'' (1985) earned ...

Tinnu Anand Tinu Anand (born Virender Raj Anand, 12 October 1945) is an Indian actor, director, writer and producer in Hindi cinema and a few Telugu and Tamil films. Early life He is the son of veteran writer Inder Raj Anand, brother of producer Bittu An ...

Om Puri Om Prakash Puri (18 October 1950 – 6 January 2017) was an Indian actor who appeared in mainstream commercial Hindi films as well as Bengali, Kannada, English,Punjabi and one Telugu film, as well as independent and art films and also starr ...

Reema Lagoo Reema Lagoo (born Nayan Bhadbhade; 21 June 1958 – 18 May 2017) was an Indian theatre and screen actress known for her work in Hindi and Marathi cinema. She began her acting career in the Marathi theatre, after which she became a household na ...

and Dilip Prabhawalkar. The film's soundtrack was composed by

Vishal Bhardwaj Vishal Bhardwaj (born 4 August 1965) is an Indian film director, screenwriter, producer, music composer and playback singer. He is known for his work in Hindi cinema, and is the recipient of seven National Film Awards and a Filmfare Award. Bha ...

, while the lyrics were penned by

Gulzar Sampooran Singh Kalra (born 18 August 1934), known professionally as Gulzar, is an Indian Urdu poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, and film director known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of greatest Urdu poets of this ...

Plot

Megha Timghure ( Masumeh Makhija) is a plain-looking middle-class girl, living with her Mum, Laxmi (

), and Dad ( Dilip Prabhawalkar), who is employed as an Income Tax Officer. Her desire is to become a model and a beauty queen. At a party, she is wrongly introduced as Sarika Verma, and meets two eligible young men, Rizwan, and Varun Arya ( Zulfi Syed). She expresses her wish to become a model and is referred to Almera Kochar (

), who has a reputation of bringing out the best in every model, and making them beauty queens. Almera meets with Sarika / Megha, and accepts her as a student, and makes her sign a contract. What Sarika does not know that she has now become a pawn in a devious plot concocted to protect millions gained by criminal activities on the black market.

Cast

* Zulfi Syed as Varun Arya * Masumeh Makhija as Megha Timghure/Sarika Mehra *

as Qasim Khan Qayamat *

as Almera Kochar *

as Tiny Kochar * Dilip Prabhawalkar as Babanrao Timghure (Megha's father) *

as Laxmi (Megha's mother) *

Jayant Kripalani Jayant Kripalani is an Indian film, television and stage actor, director and trainer. He is most known for his role in the TV series, like '' Khandaan'', ''Mr. Mrs'' and '' Ji Mantriji'' (2003). He also wrote the screenplay for Shyam Benegal's fi ...

as Anand Arya (Varun's father) *

Raj Zutshi Rajendranath Zutshi, more commonly known as Raj Zutshi (born 4 February 1961), is an Indian film and television actor. Personal life Zutshi was born on 4 February 1961 in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India into a Kashmiri Pandit family. Raj ...

as Sunel * Peeya Rai Chowdhary as Sheetal (Megha's friend) * Raman Lamba as Rizwan *

Kurush Deboo Kurush Deboo (born 12 September 1963) is an Indian actor who has acted in many supporting roles in Hindi films and television series. He was first noticed as Shah Rukh Khan's character's loyal friend in '' Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa''. He is known f ...

as Shop Manager

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of Chupke Se consists of 6 songs composed by

, the lyrics of which were written by

and

Abbas Tyrewala Abbas Tyrewala (born 15 May 1974) is an Indian film screenwriter and director. After making his mark as a screenwriter and dialogue writer in early 2000s, with award-winning films like ''Maqbool'' (2003), ''Munnabhai M.B.B.S.'' (2003), he made ...

Critical reception

Taran Adarsh of

Bollywood Hungama Bollywood Hungama (lit. "Bollywood Madness" in Hindi), previously known as IndiaFM (or IndiaFM.com), is a Bollywood entertainment website, owned by Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, which acquired the website in 2000. The website provide ...

gave the film a rating of 1.5 out of 5 saying that, "Director Shona Urvashi gets the technique of film-making right, but is let down by the writing bbas Tyrewala, Shona herself The script fluctuates from plausible to implausible with regularity and that’s where it falters." Ron Ahluwalia of ''Planet Bollywood'' gave the film a rating of 6 out of 10 saying that, "Chupke Se... is an attempt at an entertaining venture that just doesn't cut it. Ridden by cliches, incongruities, unnecessary use of derogatory language, below average direction and a supersaturated plot, this movie can simply be judged as amateur." Namrata Joshi of

Outlook Outlook or The Outlook may refer to: Computing * Microsoft Outlook, an e-mail and personal information management software product from Microsoft * Outlook.com, a web mail service from Microsoft * Outlook on the web, a suite of web applications ...

gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5 saying that, "Chupke Se is an earnest first attempt which could have been so much more fun. The gags and pranks don't really sparkle."

References

{{reflist 2003 films 2003 romantic comedy films Indian romantic comedy films 2000s Hindi-language films Films scored by Vishal Bhardwaj Films scored by Ranjit Barot