After a very long time, it is refreshing and comforting to see an aging world-weary working-class hero who travels to work on a wobbly scooter and tries to fulfill his nuclear family's dreams of a car.

The voyage from the two-wheeler to the four is what “Do Dooni Chaar” is about. It's a simple idea peppered and punctuated by scenes and dialogues straight out of a Punjabi middle-class household in Delhi where the two grownup kids dream of BMWs and IPL shares, while the father tries to put together money for an Alto car and chicken meals for his family.

The movie, directed by debutant Habib Faizal, has a heartwarming slice-of-life feel to it.

Rishi Kapoor, playing a working-class loser for the first time in his career pitches in a near unblemished performance as a maths teacher whose students have gone on to own the best cars in the world while he, the gyan guru, remains frozen in his middle-class karma.

Fortunately, the neatly scripted but at times a little under-done movie opts not to focus on the irony of a knowledge-giver's financial burdens. Instead, the plot cleverly digs out situations where the Duggal family is shown getting into comic crises, such as the wedding at Rishi's sister's in-laws' place where the Duggal parivar has to show up in a borrowed car.

These situations written sensibly and enacted realistically echo the savagery of life for the working-class without wasting time feeling sorry for the characters.

Not just Rishi's character, even his wife, played by the lovely Neetu, comes across as uncomplicated, practical and sensible householder who makes ends meet not by the size of her husband's income, but by a miraculous mix of common sense and unusual guts.

It's a pleasure beyond measure to watch Rishi and Neetu play their real-life roles on screen. For those of us who watched the pair do “Khullam khulla pyar” in their heydays, watching them slip naturally into the roles of harried parents seems like a journey well taken.

Add the two teenage actors playing Rishi-Neetu's son (Archit Krishna) and daughter (Aditi Vasudev) into the plot. And we are face-to-face with as real a family as it can get in a quirky whimsical earthy and emotional story of a working-class family's promotion in life from the scooter to the automobile.

The humanisation and under-idealization of the knowledge-giver is a clever touch in the script. The debutant director shows substantial scripting skills in the way he leads his hero up the road of corruption and then pulls him back from temptation just in time.

On a level that goes beyond entertainment, “Do Dooni Chaar” is actually a timely warning to the architects of the country's education system. The movie says… don't let the guru (teacher) become a shishya (pupil) of compromised idealism. Pay the teacher well. On the other hand, if such a reform in the educationalist's lives really happened, we wouldn't have the pleasure of seeing Rishi Kapoor deliver such a lived-in brilliant performance.

Go for “Do Dooni Chaar”. It is worthy to watch.