Bollywood films often face criticism for their clichd plots and melodramatic ends but YRF's latest offering 'Meri Pyaari Bindu' is slightly different from run-of-the-mill love stories. Debutante director Akshay Roy comes up with a light hearted film which will melt your heart. Abhimanyu aka Babula Roy (Ayushmann Khurrana) is a bestselling author based out of Mumbai.

How different can a love story be than the usual boy meets girl, falls in love and lives happily ever after formula? Meri Pyaari Bindu is an attempt to answer that question. While this quirky and cute film employs a majority of the formula, it also deviates from it in many respects. Meri Pyaari Bindu is not your run-of-the-mill romance. It's a love story that lays equal importance on the friendship between two people.

Kishore Kumar's classic ode, Meri Pyaari Bindu, in the Sunil Dutt and Saira Banu-starrer Padosan (1968) happened to be her father's favourite song - the reason she was named Bindu (Parineeti), though she laments Saira would have been a better option. Except for a name, over which she had no control, Bindu, who aspires to be a singer, lives life on her own terms. As she pursues her dream, neighbour and childhood buddy Abhi (Ayushmann) follows his calling - a life together with Bindu.

Sentimentality towards old-fashioned technology is touching but it is no substitute for functionality. But I doubt Meri Pyaari Bindu will understand my point of view busy as it is channelling it as a stylistic tool to generate nostalgia and a script out of a 'chaar inch by dhaai inch ka dirty secret.' Not a bad idea to illustrate the deep bond of two childhood friends looped in a mix tape of their favourite songs, rounding up their various highs and lows.

Meri Pyaari Bindu is like the proverbial cup of extra-milky tea with two spoons of sugar on a rainy Calcutta evening. Calcutta, not Kolkata. Because the Kolkata that writer Abhimanyu Roy (Ayushmann Khurrana) and aspiring singer Bindu Shankar Narayan (Parineeti Chopra) live, love and grow up in, is an emotion. Not politically-correct changed spellings. Abhi is madly in love with his mad neighbour Bindu. Mad, unreciprocated love. But obviously.

Abhimanyu aka Bubla Roy (Ayushmann Khurrana) is a horror-erotica fiction writer who is facing writer's block after going through a major heartbreak. While his publisher is onto him asking him to come up with a new book, Abhi realizes it's finally time to turn to a genre that he has been running from, a romantic novel. He decides to pen down his own love story as 'Meri Pyaari Bindu'.

Abhimanyu Roy, also known by his 'daak naam' Bubla (Ayushmann Khurrana), is a corporate type-turned-pulp novelist. Bindu Shankarnaryanan (Parineeti Chopra) only known as Bindu, is an aspiring singer who turns... she knows not what, for the longest time. In Meri Pyaari Bindu, these two come and go, come and go, and leave us wanting more.

At one point, Abhimanyu's (Khurrana) agent tells him, "Don't try to write like Gulzar." The writers of the movie should have paid heed to their own character's advice. The dialogue often employs abstract lines to describe simple situations. An army Major randomly spouts, "One of you had to get hurt" with full emotion. You don't expect this of him. There's a throwaway pun about "coming" that just doesn't fit. Bindu (Chopra) says something that's right out of a self-help book but quickly declares it as, "Thought of the day," as if to cover up the corny.

Remember the sacrificial, selfless love shown in the films from the Raj Kapoor era where the best friend of the heroine loved her but she only cherished his friendship? This was much before Shah Rukh Khan and Co told us that friendship is love. Meri Pyaari Bindu is a nostalgic tribute to the time and attempts a similar love story. Only, Abhimanyu Roy's (Ayushmann Khuranna) love is not selfless and this is no classic romance.

I tend to grow on people, the male protagonist preens. In a completely different context, he also admits that nobody's perfect. Both statements could apply equally to Meri Pyaari Bindu, a breezy romantic comedy from the Yash Raj Films stable that is unlike any romantic comedy ever to have come out of the Yash Raj Films stable - or, for that matter, from the Bollywood dream factory as a whole.

When the trailers of YRF film Meri Pyaari Bindu were released, it gave the impression that the film was more of a musical tribute to the Golden Era of Hindi film music than an actual love story, which is why, I was more curious to see what the film has to offer apart from a sense of nostalgia and I finally got the answer...

MERI PYAARI BINDU is an essentially slice of life love story between two lovers and the ups and downs that their lives are subjected to. The film starts off with the suicide attempt by the novel writer Abhimanyu Roy aka Bubla (Ayushmann Khurrana) because he is not able to forget the girl whom he loved so selflessly. The girl in question is the free spirited Bindu Shankarnarayanan (Parineeti Chopra), who, despite living life on her own terms, leaves everything in life incomplete. Since Abhimanyu had been staying away from his parents for a long time, his parents fake their divorce and call him back home to Kolkatta.