You live once with no luxury of getting back the by-gone days. Fulfil all your dreams when the heart is strong enough to face the vagaries of challenges thrown at the youth from all corners. On those inspirational lines by way of a montage song, Irrfan Khan and his faithful team of artistes give the audience a quality time on what makes it to be a parent to be counted and not those all rans, in the huge Indian population.

Battling a terminal disease during the making, Irrfan shows no inkling of the pain he must have undergone. It is not easy to be a single parent, more so when the only child is a girl. Like all protective fathers, he is happy to be in that small world of his till it is time for a reality check. Tarika (Radhika Madan) dreams big and sets her sights on higher education in London. Pounds are expensive which Champak (Irrfan) realises but deep inside him there is the strong urge and desire to fufil the ambition of the apple of his eye. When his friend chides him that London is not Mars to feel disturbed, the father in the man is in no mood to turn it away.

There begins an exploring journey, Champak joined in by his brother (Deepak Dobriyal) to make a seemingly realistic ambition take bigger roots. Any extent the twosome are willing and game enough to sell the name of their ancestral sweet shop to a demanding clan.

Radhika Madan slips easily into the character, charming her way into her father's heart to convince him that she has it in her to achieve her goals and make him proud. The chemistry is all there to see in the doting ways the father looks after, be it in spoon-feeding to dropping her at school. Those are the early emotional-chord moments of the offering, getting better and better as the screenplay unfolds with surprises at every turn.

Like the famous saying that little knowledge is dangerous, Champak lands in trouble with his non-speaking English skills. Getting back to London via an aerial route does not see the director in good light, inspired by scores of films of the old where the middlemen chart their destiny. But then, the feature of the movie is the appropriate casting with every character getting their share of screen space. Even in her limited footage, Kareena Kapoor Khan (as a cop) shows vast glimpses of her ability to fit into the scheme of things, not riding on star power alone.

In a character which has to be patient, caring and affectionate, Irrfan is the pillar on which the whole plot rides and all the characters revolve around him as if waiting for the orders and executed with panache. That the actor could slip into the Rajasthani dialect and give a different sheen to the Champak character is worth going all the way to savour.

Inevitably, the plot somewhat sags in the second moiety, with Tarika getting a hang of the London culture. She educates her father to give a knock before entering her room, only to be to told that when she comes back to India, she is free to barge into his room.

True, there are segments when the movie focuses more on the father-daughter relationship rather than the main one where the characters ought to be focused on the ultimate goal like a horse with blinkers on. Thanks to an astute screenplay and witty dialogues laced with humour, the audience interest is sustained for the better part. If it is a director's medium, Homi Adjania allows the characters to charm the audience, rather than placing his interest above them.

At the end of it, there are enough reasons for the senior citizens to feel happy and contented. It must have dawned on them that the meaningful days spent with and on their children had been worth its weight in gold. Importantly, there cannot be a second inning, unlike in the white ball Test cricket.