A  serious and thought-provoking proposal is set in a fun-loving and bubbly way without taking away the pain, pathos and the helpless grief of the protagonist. This is the third in a series of films about the physically challenged that Sanjay Leela Bhansali has handled with aplomb. And he is improving with each film.

He handled the silent world of the deaf and dumb in Khamoshi, and followed it one film later with the dark universe of a blind and dumb girl in Black. In Guzaarish he tackles the bleak life of a quadriplegic, played incredibly and marvelously by Hrithik Roshan.

Known mainly for his dancing ability and Adonis looks, Hrithik has in this film used only his champagne-coloured eyes to emote. Just by his eyes and voice, he has managed to convey the vulnerability of quadriplegics — individuals who have to depend on others for their every physical activity, as they are completely paralysed neck-below.

The film is about a Goa-based famous magician Ethan Mascarenhas, who gets seriously injured in an accident engineered by friend-turned-rival while performing a popular act of illusion on stage. The severe spinal cord injury even after several surgeries and ongoing medications leaves the magician wheelchair-bound for life.

For 14 years Ethan battles life with laughter-filled eyes, asking people and also other quadriplegics to love life despite all hurdles and live it with dignity. To reach out to people he becomes a radio jockey of an FM station called Radio Zindagi, and answers calls sitting on a wheelchair much like the scientist Stephen Hawking’s chair that has every gadget attached to it for him to maneuver it and also talk in the mike.

Living in a huge but rundown Goan mansion of Portuguese lineage, two loyal servants and a personal day-care nurse Sophia, played by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, serve Ethan. While Bhansali has been able to extract a superlative performance from the nimble-footed Hrithik, it is a different story with Ash. All that she has done is to look more and more beautiful in every frame of the film. One fervently wishes that if Bhansali could make Hrithik act, he should have tried a little harder to make the Helen of Troy look-alike Rai-Bachchan act too. I guess even he gave up on a lost cause.

Sophia who has filed for a divorce to get away from the torturous marriage to a drunkard man, takes care of Ethan’s needs including cleaning his pot, bathing him, feeding him, reading newspapers and helping him in his RJ work. But even she can’t help his deteriorating health when his kidneys and lungs start weakening.

That’s when Ethan decides that having lived a life of dignity its time he ends it in a dignified way and so asks his lawyer friend Devyani Dutta, played by theatre and screen artist Shernaz Patel, earlier seen in Bhansali’s Black, to file a petition in the court seeking euthanasia — freedom to end his life in a manner which relieves pain and suffering. That’s where the problem begins for the Constitution of India doesn’t permit this.

This is the time when a tall, curly-topped, smiling lad Omar Siddiqui, played by Aditya Roy Kapoor (earlier seen in London Dreams, Action Replayy) enters Ethan’s life and home wanting to learn magic tricks from the once-famous magician. The entire film is a canvas painted by Bhansali through the eyes of cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee. For a good change it is the undulating beauty of idyllic countryside of Goa with unending paddy fields and a horizon sprinkled with coconut trees that have been captured and not the usual bikini-clad foreigners filled notorious beaches.

But these outdoor scenes are very few. Majority of the film is shot indoors in the mansion and for some reason Bhansali’s love of blue colour from the days of his films Black and Saawariya continues even here. He has to over come it to make his canvas ‘painted’ at an alleged sum of Rs60-70 crores look more endearing.

Guzaarish definitely isn’t a tearjerker. Ethan is fun, anger and humour all rolled into one. You taste these when, asked by Sophia if he required anything before she left him for the night, Ethan with mischief filled eyes asks: “If possible a bagful of condoms and willing ladies would be welcome for the night!”

Or when the presiding judge after postponing the hearing for another date informs Hrithik in the court that the next hearing would be held at Ethan’s home so that he won’t have to endure the pain of coming to the court, with twinkling eyes Ethan says, “Yes, then we can hear the judgment over lunch!”

There definitely are a couple of heartrending moments like when on a windy and rainy night Ethan’s bed is unknowingly under a leaking spot in the ceiling. Though he calls out for help, no one hears him in the big mansion and in the noise of the rain. Vulnerably he endures the drop by drop of water falling on his forehead, as he just can’t move himself. And in another scene, when Sophie’s husband, Neville D’Souza, a cameo role played by Makrand Deshpande, beats her up in front of Ethan, all he can do is beg the boorish man to stop it. Everyone in the audience could feel his helplessness in the plea. The slight disappointment is in the music department as Bhansali has taken it on himself to score the music. He debuts as a music director and has made Hrithik, beside acting and dancing, also sing the Louis Armstrong’s 1968 song, What a Wonderful World.

Guzaarish is one of the most watchable films of the year. And it is an out-and-out Hrithik Roshan one, too. Watch it, for I really doubt if we will ever get to see him act this well again.