Once in a while, you come across a movie, which had potential but was marred by shoddy execution and amateurish writing and Wah Taj, which releases this week, falls firmly in that category. Starring Shreyas Talpade and Manjari Fadnis, Wah Taj is a satire about a Maharashtrian farmer named Tukaram Raosaheb Marathe (Talpade), who lands up at the Taj Mahal with his family one fine day and claims that the land on which it has been built belongs to his ancestors and demands that it be handed over to him for farming.

The Wah Taj premise is outlandish, a Maharashtrian farmer shows up in Agra and claims the land where Shahjahan built the Taj Mahal as his ancestral property. But the big reveal behind this movie is both topical and relevant. The problem is, this movie wants to be a genuine satire but it spends most of its time being a brainless comedy. The disconnect between the satirical intention and the farcical execution robs the movie of its impact. The story starts off when Tukaram (Shreyas Talpade) shows up at the Taj Mahal with his wife (Manjari Phadnis) and daughter.

A social worker will spot a huge bindi and wear well-pleated sarees, politicians are all about giving fire to chaos till they can use it to their own benefit, cops don't care for crimes and media houses are all about getting TRPs. Sounds like a stereotypical story for a Bollywood satire. Alas, Ajit Sinha's Wah Taj does not come across as the satire-comedy it aims to be.

Tukaram (Shreyas Talpade) dressed in a kurta-pyjama-jacket and Sundari (Manjari Phadnis) in a low-waist nauvari sari, pitch a tent on the banks of Yamuna in the sweltering Agra-heat, laying claim to the land that the Taj Mahal stands on. As if that isn't unbelievable enough, there emerges proof, in the form of an age-old letter signed by Emperor Humayun, to back the claim.

A good myth makes us want to believe - even in the most outlandish story. Indians, in particular, love to lap up absurd tales with no basis in fact, and the first reaction of our newspaper-reading audience when faced with a tall claim is often to first assume it did happen. Because it often does. In Wah Taj - a film that truly should have aimed for a Zakir Hussain cameo - we are faced with a farmer who has come from Maharashtra to Agra, ostensibly making the journey on a tractor, to claim the Taj Mahal since it has been built on the land given to his ancestor by the emperor Humayun.