Ashi Hi Banwa Banwi is a Marathi film directed by Sachin Pilgaonkar and had released in India on 23 September 1988. It is a comedy film revolving around four close friends, it borrows the basic plot from the 1966 movieBiwi Aur Makan, directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, which was also remade in Telugu in 1991 as Chitram Bhallare Vichitram, in Kannada in 2003 as Olu Saar Bari Olu, in Hindi in 2009 as Paying Guests, in Punjabi in 2014 as Mr & Mrs 420 and in Bengali in 2017 as Jio Pagla. It is now considered as a cult classiccomedy in Marathi cinema.
Plot
Dhananjay Mane is a street-smart salesperson in a cosmetic store owned by Madhuri in Pune. He lives as a tenant of a stingy landlord Vishwas Sarpotdar. He is soon joined by his younger brother Shantanu who is a Medical student. Though prohibited by the landlord, Dhananjay and Shantanu allow their friends Parshuram and Sudhir, who have come to Pune in search of jobs, to secretly live with them. Sudhir has been kicked out by his abusive uncle where he also worked to earn money and pay for his singing classes. Parshuram has been kicked out by his employer because he finds out that his daughter Kamli and Parshuram are in love. One night, Dhananjay, Parshuram and Sudhir insult their landlord while drunk and are taken away by Shantanu, who arrives at the scene a little too late. Enraged by this harassment, Vishwas Sarpotdar orders them to vacate the place. After many failed futile attempts of finding a new home on rent, Dhananjay and Shantanu finally reach the palatial house of a rich, old, kind, and half-blind widow named Lilabai Kalbhor. She lives with her shrewd servant Tanu and is often harassed by her nephew Bali for money. She is willing to rent some rooms in the house to Dhananjay and Shantanu provided they are married. Thus begins the comedy of errors. In order to comply with Lilabai's condition, Dhananjay and Shantanu convince Parshuram and Sudhir to disguise themselves as their wives. Parashuram thus turns into Parvati and Sudhir turns into Sudha. Shortly after arriving at their new rental home as couples, Lilabai's niece, Manisha, and her friend Sushma, who is also Shantanu's girlfriend from college, visit for a long stay at the house. Sudhir is now a successful singer and courts Manisha while Shantanu makes up a fake story of his wife's cancer to appease Sushma, who is clearly upset at seeing him married. Meanwhile, Dhananjay and his employer Madhuri also fall in love with each other. Dhananjay and Co. develop a bond of motherly love with their landlady. Eventually, Tanu and Bali come to know about the disguises when they notice Sudha leaving the house as Sudhir through a window and Parvati talking to Kamli. Dhananjay and Co. are then forced to leave. On their way out, they are exposed in front of their landlady and are handed over to police called in by Bali. But at the police station, the landlady absolves them of their deceitfulness because she feels these guys did the drama out of their need for a roof over their heads and did not steal from her or take advantage of her half-blindedness. If anything, they only treated her like a mother. And hence she decides to take them in as her sons. The movie ends with a family picture of all 4 newly-wed couples with the landlady.
