What the heart wants once more

A decade after Farhan Akhtar’s directorial debut, his sister’s sophomore effort walks a parallel road with expectedly diminishing returns.

A decade ago three young men on the threshold of life packed their bags into the trunk of a Mercedes convertible and headed to Goa. They parked themselves quite firmly in the collective consciousness of the urban Indian yuppie and ten years later Hindi cinema (or may be just the director’s sister) is still paying tribute. Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is destined to live in the shadow of her brother’s genre defining Dil Chahta Hai because its target demographic is largely the same. What has changed are the means of this target demographic and this is reflected in the locations and aesthetics of Zoya’s film. Where Akash, Samir and Sid went to Goa on vacation, Zoya’s trio take trips to Spain. They don’t rent scooters anymore; they rent vintage convertibles and live in villas that would entice the least materialistic among us. This enticement is, without a doubt, the true core of this film. Its cloying postcard splendor is a frosted glass cage that we must look past to see the characters inside. And in an initial daze that resembles a sugar-high, we are quite glad to make the effort.

Though the film never crosses the Atlantic, it is filled with Manhattan stereotypes. Kabir, a Clark Kent spectacles wearing Abhay Deol, is the Upper East side living, wealthy wasp equivalent among the three friends. The film begins with Kabir’s engagement to Natasha (a hilariously uptight Kalki Koechlin), a Park Avenue princess who may live in present day Mumbai but shops in London and has priorities from a past decade. Arjun, is the high power, high energy, Wall Street trader equivalent, only he lives closer to Savile Row than Park Avenue. Arjun (Hrithik Roshan), obviously over compensating for a financially disadvantaged background, is every executive cliché rolled into a single bite of Japanese speaking sushi. He nearly misses the trip (but of course doesn’t) because of work, constantly refers to retirement at forty and is fortuitously multi-lingual. But he is no ice king – of the three he is the one who wears his heart on his incredibly short, bicep-exposing sleeve. Imran (a sometimes hit sometimes miss Farhan Akhtar) is the Greenwich Village artist who sold his creative soul to the advertising industry and writes biscuit jingles that his friends mock. Imran is the class joker and remorseless cad, hiding the hurt that lurks beneath behind a veneer of inappropriate jokes and in unpublished poetry. The troika’s excuse to set off to Spain is a bachelor party for Kabir. But it is patently obvious that the road trip they embark on will become the most fundamental detour in their life’s journey. These child-men have much growing up to do and in the absence of a qualified shrink (Kabir who seems to have graduated from Pop-psychology University can be safely discounted), they use adventure sports to achieve the same results.

The film is not without its poignant moments. The titles, with Abhay flying first class, Arjun and his meticulously packed luggage flying business and Imran’s hurriedly thrown together rucksack in coach chatting up a stewardess, clearly segment and define the character types we are dealing with. The tension between Imran and Arjun when they first meet is palpable and Arjun makes a quip the slimness of Imran’s paycheck – a perfect example of an instance in which we inflict careless wounds on friends. The Arjun – Laila (a winsome and well cast Katrina Kaif) romance starts off on the right note as well – with Imran making the first move while Arjun watches in the background protesting silently. But with Laila the player seems to have met his match and she aptly takes the lead in her relationship with the Arjun who, despite his multilingual prowess, remains woefully inarticulate when it comes to wooing. When words leave Arjun’s mouth they fall, like most two-dimensional objects attempting stand straight, flat on the floor. The two most honest moments of the film belong to Imran – one in a post coital curl up where his partner has no clue what he is confessing and the other in a confrontation with his estranged father.

The camaraderie and in-jokes are easy to identify with but the gag that elicits the loudest laugh comes from outside the friendship – Saare Jahaan se achcha playing over the slow motion walk to a skydiving plane. It is a subversive dig at patriotism and an indication of what this film thinks about existing holy cows. This film, in all its beauty and splendor, worships at only one place – the temple of consumerism. One would not be remiss in imagining the scarf and shades wearing Hermes Bag, dubbed Bagvati by Imran, as the presiding deity of this temple. The characters in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara may tell you to follow your dreams and live in the moment, but what the film truly preaches is want. It is impossible not to want the lives that these characters live. Everything that they touch, perceive and experience (even sadness) is so beautiful that we are enticed into believing that we deserve the same. In reality these lives need to be bought and paid for and therefore the only thing this film is bound to create is more people who depress their dreams in pursuit of money – to draw from its on characters, more Arjuns. When Dil Chahta Hai first came out we accepted in with open arms because of our wide-eyed optimism. After a decade spent in a mostly capitalist boom, our generation is now slightly jaded. And as a result slightly more wary of the goods that Zoya Akhtar is truly selling in her sophomore effort. 

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of The New Indian Express. Link.

Hinglish Hilarity

Delhi Belly is a slice of life comedy that serves up simpletons, squalor and scatological humor with great sophistication.

The scrolling yellow announcement above the screen showing Delhi Belly announced a rarely seen linguistic classification. “Hinglish” it said in parentheses adjacent to the title, proudly announcing that this was not a film where characters translated thoughts out of commercial pressures. True to its claims, Delhi Belly is bilingual in an entirely believable fashion. If the subliminal linguistic classification that we indulge in – directing an auto rickshaw driver in Hindi but addressing acquaintances in English – is seamlessly integrated into Delhi Belly so is the infinite variety of the titular city. Both the squalor and the splendor of Delhi make appearances in the film, though not in equal parts. Fancy parties and hotels are contrasted with narrow streets and dubiously constructed tenements. This duality is one of many sources of depth in Abhinay Deo’s hilarious film. 

Delhi Belly opens in a Jackie Brown-esque manner with Vladimir, a nervous Russian mule, transferring a package to a bimbette airhostess Sonia (played by Shehnaz Treasurywala) who is unaware of the contraband she is in possession of. In a miniscule span of screen time a whole slew of comedic possibilities are set up because of this disparity of information. The economy of expression in that opening scene is present through the entirety of Delhi Belly allowing the film to paint even its most insignificant of characters with color and complexity. The film’s three male protagonists – Tashi, Nitin and Arup – live in a habitual state of squalor and slack. Tashi (a grungy, bearded Imran Khan) nurses ambitions of being a serious journalist, a sentiment not shared by his photographer and roommate Nitin (Kunaal Roy Kapur in a ‘free flowing’ performance). What they do have in common, though, is an internal dichotomy. Despite his professional ambitions Tashi is not serious about the one mainstay in his life – long time girlfriend and fiancé Sonia. And despite his mercenary attitude, Nitin does have artistic tendencies, even if they are of the morbid variety. The roommate who commits the delivery error that leads to the film’s shenanigans is Arup (Vir Das). Whether head nodding to a hack boss who issues absurdly hilarious directives or being reduced, quite literally, to a doormat by his by his girlfriend Ritu, Arup is a safely submissive young man. His urge to fight back is reserved for his friends. Menaka (Poorna Jagannathan), a fellow journalist with a crush on Tashi and a jealous husband filled with murderous anger, is the fourth piece of this unintentionally comedic quartet.

Be it the protagonists or a philandering yet conscientious landlord, Delhi Belly is chock-full of flawed people who find themselves in hilarious predicaments. Even the archetypal jealous husband expends a second admiring (what he thinks is) two women kissing before realizing that one of them is his wife. Ironically the only soul who stands tall above them as a man of refinement is a gangster. Slipping into Hindi and English with equal élan, Vijay Raaz’s performance as Somayajulu is pitched and timed to perfection. Somayajulu may be a gangster but he is a purveyor of items of immaculate beauty – diamonds. There is some artistry to his trade as evidenced by his elaborately delicate procedure for viewing the diamonds Vladimir has smuggled for him. First, a velvet cloth is laid out on a flat surface. Then any dust or other extraneous impurity is dismissed with a flick of the wrist or a puff of air from the lips. And finally the contents of the package are lovingly emptied on to the cloth. It is both inexplicably sad and funny that the reward he gets for all his care is a stool sample. For all the running scatological humor and great lines in Delhi Belly, it is this moment of dual emotion that defines this riotous film. 

P.S: An edited version of this piece appeared in the City Express supplement of the New Indian Express yesterday. Link.

Sense and Senility

Cinematic homage to an angry young man delivered by a rather uppity old man. 

If there is an unabashed practitioner of the multi-ingredient masala method of making films it has to be Puri Jagannadh. Therefore it comes as no surprise that when assembling a tribute to the aura of the original angry young man he comes up with Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap. Every moment that Bachchan is on screen, save a tender moment toward the end, is an opportunity to emphasize his virility and larger than life stature. Every detail of the film is in service of the Big Bachchan identity and the era that cemented his stardom. The large lapels, silk shawls, floral patterns and boots are all back in full force. Two popular numbers of the age, Don’s Paan Banaraswala and Yaarana’s Saara Zamaana, have been remixed and placed to trigger aural memories. These armaments, Puri assumes, are sufficient to buoy the story of a retired but still potent hitman named Viju (played by who else but Bachhan himself) returning to Mumbai – the city where he earned his stripes, learnt his lessons and lost his family.

We’ve even met most of the characters decades ago – an extremely religious single mother, a conscientious cop, callous criminals and fashionably adorned romantic interests. Prakashraj takes over villain duties in the absence of the formidable Ajit. With gangster haven regulars like Bob Christo and Mac Mohan retiring to the great beyond, Makarand Deshpande (also named Mac) and familiar faces from Puri’s Telugu ventures like Pokiri fill in sundry gang member roles. Sonu Sood, the only other person with sizeable screen time, is obviously cast as a throwback to the cops once played by Bachchan himself. The film even establishes its notions of romance firmly in favor of the early eighties. It is the ‘dream girl’ Hema Malini who truly has the heart of the leading man in this film, not the oomph girl of the nineties – Raveena. If one bemoans the passing of the tried and tested tropes of the early eighties Hindi film, then Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap is your own personal Easter.

But what of those of us who loved fell in love with Bachchan’s angry young man for entirely different reasons? Puri Jagannadh’s film offers little for those of us who preferred the silent strength he embodied in Shakti. Now, suggestive background music clouds the reticently used baritone and designer sunglasses mask the smoldering anger in those eyes. Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap is a tribute to only a few of the affectations that made the Big B a star and is, therefore, a slight let down.

P.S: An edited version of this piece appeared in yesterday's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link.

Shaitan, Eesan and...

... Ebert's law on First Post today.

Try School Musical

Always Kabhi Kabhi is an inconsistent Indianisation of the high school musical.

Nandini Oberoi, popularly known as Nandy Bull, is the resident tomboy of St.Mark’s High school where Always Kabhi Kabhi plays out. She is constantly at loggerheads with her oldest friend and token nerd of the school Tariq “Einstein” Naqvi. It is obvious for anyone who has seen a teen romance or three that these two will find their way into each other’s arms. This is, after all, a simple extrapolation of the pigtail pulling we see on school playgrounds – fighting is just a circuitous way of expressing affection. But the film still manages to pull off a reworking of this trope in a fashion rarely seen in these parts.

In true teen-romance style it is Nandini’s personal crisis, an unexpected pregnancy scare in this case, that brings these two oddly nicknamed kids together. However it does not happen with Einstein confronting Nandini’s philandering boyfriend or challenging him to a duel at dawn for her honor. What he does instead, is face up to the awkward task of buying a few pregnancy tests from a disapproving, yet surprisingly well-intentioned, pharmacist. This, curiously enough, is sufficient for Einstein to work his way into Nandini’s heart. It takes a true romantic to conceive and pull off a “he is so cute he brought me pregnancy tests” meet-cute. Sadly this spark of novelty is one of the very few things right with Always Kabhi Kabhi.

Set in a campus that resembles a Haveli at times and Hogwarts at others, Always Kabhi Kabhi attempts to relocate the high school musical to Delhi. Sadly the film makes quite a mish-mash mess of the move. A serious contest of Shakespeare plays is established as the backdrop for the film. Yet we rarely see any effort requisite of a student production. The new student Aishwarya, played by the wispily attractive Giselli Monteiro, is just handed the part Juliet on her first day of school. The emphasis placed on looks and a Bollywood bloodline reiterates the superficial reality that the film inhabits. We settle in to the film, content in the assumption that a powder puff romantic drama is set to unfold. But it quickly abandons the play to probe drugs, corrupt cops and indifferent parents. This inconsistency soon envelops the narrative and performances as well. Ali Fazal as Sam and Satyajeet Dubey as Einstein seem lost in wide-eyed cluelessness for the most part and Zoa Morani as Nandini has little to do but look spunky or cute as necessary. If the film had stuck to a tone it may have, at the very least, been acceptable as a genre exercise. As it stands, Always Kabhi Kabhi exhibits an emptiness of character that makes it an extremely tiresome watch.

P.S: An edited version appears here.

The Devil in the Details

A tale of modern amorality that often leaves its viewers feeling as cold as its characters.

Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitan has been raising eyebrows ever since its Rorschach blot of a poster first released. The psychedelia fueled, Kannadasan referencing trailer raised our expectations from the film. It became obvious that the film would explore the shenanigans of a youth that knows no want, but would it be more? Would it be concerned with matters more than style or had we already seen everything that would differentiate the film from its peers? These were the questions in my mind as I stepped into a theatre showing the film. As the film slowly percolates through my mind, the answers I am left with, after the style has been filtered, are less than satisfactory.

Shaitan introduces us to its individual characters with few preliminaries. Amrita Jaishankar (played by Kalki Koechlin) is the new rich kid in town and she brings with her a lot of baggage, though not of the variety manufactured by Samsonite. Having already lost her mother to insanity, she fears she may also be losing her father to her stepmother. Into her walled off life waltz a band of bacchanalian revelers who promise trust and friendship. The group consists of small time model Tanya (played by Kirti Kulhari), video game obsessed rich boy Zubin (Neil Bhoopalam) and a waiter who doubles as a drug pusher Dash (Shiv Pandit). The spliced-together moments that introduce each member of this group to us, offers no explanation as to how the youngsters gravitated to each other, except for the maniacal charm of its alpha dog Karan Chaudhury (Gulshan Devaiya in what might become a career defining role), KC for short. The disparities in affection and economic strata that drive the dynamics of such a group all subtly woven into the group’s interactions. Yet the amoral bubble that surrounds these five youngsters ensures that we remain always on the outside looking in. The image of a young Amrita separated from her straitjacketed mother by shatterproof glass foreshadows the problem with Shaitan – the sense of separation that we, the audience, feel from the characters that inhabit the amoral asylum that is Bejoy Nambiar’s universe.

The story of Arvind Mathur (Rajiv Khandelwal proving once again, after Aamir, that he is a reliable performer) provides a contrasting perspective; he is a cop struggling to hold on to his moral center in a world rife with decay. The exploitation of women, in particular, incites a blinding rage in the man. (We first see him after he has just meted out vigilante justice to a sexual offender.) Ironically, Arvind is on the brink of losing, in addition to his job, his wife. Again we are offered no reasons for their mutual discontent, except the insinuation that they come from different worlds and maybe a difference of opinion on Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It is, however, not impossible to imagine the corrosive effect his simmering rage may have had on the marriage. These two worlds, one filled with drug induced debauchery and the other filled with the frustration of moral certitude, collide when the pentad of friends perpetrate a hit and run on the streets of Mumbai. When a corrupt cop (Love Sex aur Dhokha’s Raj Kumar Yadav) decides to blackmail the group instead of presenting them before the law, the wheels on the friendship, and the film, slowly begin fall off. 

Arvind Mathur reminds one of Anant Velankar and this makes us root for him despite his foibles. This is more than can be said for the group of youngsters in the film. They dispel their ennui through methods possibly learnt from their suburban counterparts in America – through sexually charged games of spin the bottle and cough syrup abuse. At some level, they are all broken children, but the film offers little to identify the source of their discontent. Their lack of a moral compass is the only defense offered for in their favor over the length of the film and this is no defense at all. So, after reels and reels of slow motion shots and incidental corpses, the vapidity of it all begins to irk. Shaitan is, at times, so insular that it drives away those attempting to actively engage its characters. The distance enables us to appreciate its aesthetic, but for the large part leaves us unfeeling and untouched. Shaitan suffers from a curse – the curse of ‘cool’.  

P.S: An edited version appears in the City Express supplement of today's New Indian Express.

Unsteady and Going Nowhere

A star vehicle that truly defies classification, reason and any sense of propriety.

Having already been subjected to the inanities of Anees Bazmee’s packaged and processed assembly line sense of humor once this summer, I walked into his latest Salman Khan starrer, Ready, with a certain sense of trepidation. As it would turn out, my fears were not necessarily unfounded. Ready is one of those concoctions of immiscible liquids, where each individual component stands in stark separation from the other. Part music video, part stand up comedy act and part gag reel, the film plays out in an entirely arbitrary fashion. This is an out and out vehicle for the comedic stylings of Salman Khan and one would do well to relinquish hope of creative concern or cohesion of narrative.

The plot, which is entirely an incidental presence in this film, is quite simple. The wayward heir of a rich joint family must unite the warring factions of the girl’s family in the two and a half hour timeline between the rolling of the T-series logo and the end credits. If a near effulgent picture of Gulshan Kumar or the animated titles, reminiscent of a time when Doordarshan was the only channel around, are not sign enough that this film is a blast from the past, then every carelessly concocted gag and action sequence that follows is. Prem (Salman Khan playing Salman Khan) is the trouble making son of the oldest of the brothers Kapoor. His character, as established by the grand Broadway musical opening number, is circumspect to say the least. The family priest’s recommendation of marriage and a case of mistaken identities bring Sanjana (Asin, probably cast for her ability not to betray absolute incredulity at the proceedings) into his life. To the Kapoor family it appears that Sanjana has waltzed into their lives sans baggage, but neither they nor we (or at least those of us who haven’t been subjected to the two South Indian versions of this story) are aware of what lies in store.

One needs look no further than the chartbuster Dinka Chika, to see that the film is a parody of itself. The large assembly of bespectacled children and outlandishly adorned dancers execute signature moves in front of a house-full board in a theater playing the movie they are all supposedly a part of. Oddly enough, the hubris of this meta imagery does not invoke irritation, just laughter. Ready is completely aware of what it is and is totally unapologetic about it. And for this reason it is impossible to stay mad at it. No star, not even the venerable Rajinikanth, wears his kitsch on his sleeve like Salman does. There is some measure of performance in the southern star’s mannerisms; an effort to take the film he is in seriously that is totally absent in Salman’s affectations. And while some may claim that a lobotomy is requisite to see the positives in Ready, it is not without its absurdly funny moments. Consider, for instance, a ridiculous signboard that just reads ‘JUNGLE’ or an actor establishing his lack of culture by assiduously ensuring his wine is on the rocks. But if one is incapable of sitting through hours of drivel for a second of laughter, Ready is not the film one should expend one’s time and money on.

 

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

The Odd Couple

Shared birthdays and sundered dreams reduce the degrees of separation between a gangster and a bored stay at home mom.

For how many contiguous units of time can we witness a thing of beauty and remain enamored by it? Minutes? Hours? Years? Monogamy demands that we remain enthralled by a lover until the end of either our time or theirs. If only that instinctive surge of emotion that arises in a relationship’s initial stages could be bottled and used in sparing amounts over its lifetime. The packaged endorphins would avoid the fungal growth of familiarity and the spores of contempt that slowly begin to spread over what was once a thing of consummate beauty. However, until biochemistry perfects this procedure of infinite possibilities, we will be stuck the onset of boredom and the existential crises it precipitates.

The title scenes of Vipul Shah’s Kuch Love Jaisa, are a quick study in the slow deterioration of a marriage into the mundane. Madhu Saxena, the film’s central character played by a comely Shifali Shah, and her order-loving husband Shravan (played by Summet Raghavan) go from sleeping with their legs intertwined as newlyweds to being separated by the gulf of daily grind. The film trains its focus on Madhu and her despair at disappearing in the eyes of her husband, children and even the domestic help. As a stay at home mom she feels her contributions at home are not being given due credit. And her angst seems entirely justified when her husband compares her to the ‘chipkali’ that believes it is holding the roof up. After nearly a decade of marital decay her loving husband has forgotten her birthday and she feels her transformation into one of the many inanimate pieces of furniture that adorn her house is complete. Borrowing a line from the Howard Beale handbook, she decides not take it any more.

Unbeknownst to Madhu, a dreaded gangster Raghav (Rahul Bose in a brooding effort) has been sold out to the cops by his moll, Rhea. This is Rhea’s birthday gift to Raghav whose dreams of domesticated bliss are forever clouded by the sounds of gunshots and looming cops. Circumstance and dubious writing throw this odd couple, one on the run from boredom the other from the long and rather incompetent arm of the law, together. Madhu, intent on exploring her wild side, allows herself to be led on a wild goose chase by Raghav. And over the course of their misadventures we are expected to believe that a completely above board affection, founded entirely on the golden heart of a gangster and the angst-ridden antics of a housewife, develops between the two. The emphasis is largely on the screen chemistry between Bose and Shah, but the paces they are put through ends up being the acme anchor that breaks the camel’s back. As the film trudges through tedium and arrives finally at its conclusion, we have lost all sympathy for Madhu and are downright happy to see the gangster get his just desserts. So, despite a promising start, Kuch Love Jaisa accomplishes exactly the opposite of what it possibly set out to do. 

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

Reality Bites

Three young, urban professionals love and lose in the nation’s Capital. 

Today’s generation of men, raised on the tinsel town romance and dramatics of the nineties, has assimilated almost entirely into the urban workforce. And they are slowly but surely checking off the various Maslow must haves on their checklists –Roti, Kapda aur Ladki as a recent song points out. Possessed with expendable income they find the first two easy enough to acquire on a regular basis. The last item on the list, however, is something they are ill equipped to handle, especially if they are without prior experience. Having grown up watching parents in arranged marriages and pop culture reference points that rarely depict complex women they have no resources to draw from to navigate the course of modern relationships.

The beginnings of Pyaar ka Punchnaama suggest that it could be one the few films that closes this gap in our cultural paradigm. Rajat, Liquid and Vikrant (played by Kartikeya Tiwari, Divyendu Sharma and Rayo Bhakirti respectively) are three friends and roommates living in one of the many apartment complexes in the national capital region dreamed up by real estate developers. Their home is riddled with the detritus of consumerist bachelorhood – leather couches, video games and empty pizza boxes. All three of them are entrenched in the corporate grind with jobs that seem to involve nothing more than typing indented statements into a Visual Basic editor. The film establishes their camaraderie well, defining each of these boy-men in a manner that is very recognizable. There is a palpable ease to the friends’ coexistence that anyone who has been in a cohabitation situation is familiar with. While their lives seem fine relatively hassle-free, they share a common grievance – that none of them has ever been in a relationship with a woman. This is soon rectified with Rajat meeting Neha, played by Nushrat Barucha, at a karaoke bar. In the ‘sing-off’ that culminates in Rajat and Neha exchanging numbers the boys sing Def Leppard’s ‘Pour some sugar on me’ when in reality ‘Love Bites’ may have been a more prescient choice.

Liquid and Vikrant find their women where more and more young professionals seem to meet their significant others, at work. With his Latin lothario style Vikrant is at the least able to form the mutual acceptance of a relationship with Rhea (played by the svelte Sonali Sehgal). Liquid tones his demeanor down rather uncharacteristically and winds up in the no man’s land that his girl Charu (a more homely Ishita Sharma) rather benignly terms ‘friend’. For the rest of the film the three navigate the perceived highs and lows of their relationships completely surrendering any sense of individuality. While the film is a commendable attempt at portraying a uniquely male perspective on the travails of first relationships, it falters in its one-dimensional caricaturing of the women. None of the girls move beyond stand-up comedy caricatures and each of them is presented purely as a manipulative entity. It is surprising that the men cannot see what is clearly evident to the audience. Every additional sequence of self-flagellation undoes the interesting introductions that were made. So by the time our protagonists eventually recover their instinct for self-preservation, Pyaar ka Punchnaama has already been derailed.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

Recess Pieces

Lunchtime lessons for a teacher and the audience in an emotionally affecting film. 

Scholastic endeavor, for the non-home schooled, never been to daycare majority, is the commencement of the process of being weaned away from one’s parents. It is a child’s first foray alone into a community that isn’t parental controlled. However, the process is gradual – home and school do not exist in isolation. Elements of one constantly find their way into the other. Schoolbags filled with prescribed textbooks and homework assignments are the school’s interlopers. They hover over children during short-lived evenings and weekends as harbingers of responsibilities and pressures that are to come. The agents of home, lunch bags and water bottles, are the reassuring presence in our crowded school benches. Our lunchboxes are metaphors for the advantages and capabilities that home and chance provide us.

Amole Gupte’s Stanley ka Dabba is founded on this analogy but does not rest with simply presenting it for consumption. One of its simple, yet telling, images, a that of lunchboxes resting on a wooden platform in the classroom of IV-F in Mumbai’s Holy Family high school. Amidst a jumbled pile of plastic that resembles the shanties of Rio de Janeiro stands tall, gleaming tower of metal. This is the lunch dabba of Aman, resident food philanthropist of the class and friend of our intrepid protagonist Stanley (played by a precociously cute Partho). When Stanley’s friends realize that he is without his own dabba, they decide to pool their resources to ensure he does not go hungry. However, Aman’s multistory buffet has caught the attention of the gluttonous Hindi teacher Babubhai Verma, played by Amole Gupte. Fondly termed Khadoos by his students, the teacher is not below imposing his authority to ensure that a student and his lunch are soon parted. The endearing group of friends manages to feed Stanley for a few days by serving up a few white lies to Mr.Verma, but they eventually get caught. He retaliates in a characteristically petulant manner, emphasizing what a song in the film suggests – that a hurt child, sans lunchbox, resides within him as well. It is, therefore, a slight disappointment when the pain and shame he carries remains unresolved.

Stanley ka Dabba would like us to view its children as unsullied, instinctive beings. There are no deserved punishments, only deserving accolades – usually handed down by the cloyingly affectionate Miss.Rosy played by Divya Dutta. She seems the sole spot of sunshine, a counterpoint to the stentorian south Indian science teacher. But even the most empathetic teachers seem to turn be blind to the root of Stanley’s issues. Apart from a minor rectus-sinister altercation, it is Stanley’s cohorts who seem to intuit his issues. It is an unconditional friendship that even shows the good sense not to dig too deep and disturb the false framework that Stanley has constructed.

The absence of a lunchbox is not the sole indicator that all is not well with Stanley. In fact we need look no further than the soiled uniform or the safety pin that holds his pocket in place to sense the lack of parental presence. Stanley is undoubtedly an outlier. He consistently arrives before the rest of his class to finish his homework and peers longingly through holes in the wall. These indicators are more than sufficient to evoke a lump in one’s throat when the child is unfairly marginalized because we are flush with evidence that it is not entirely his fault. So when the explanation finally arrives it seems almost inconsequential. Having entrenched us so well in the cadences of a school day, the film is at a loss whenever it walks to a different beat. Ironically, Stanley ka Dabba is a film that is most at home within the classroom.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express.

Coming of Rage

A “don’t get mad, just get even” tale for the modern teenager.

The guitar-wielding protagonist of Y films’ introductory animation dispels any doubts on the demographic that Yashraj’s new venture intends to cater to. The film company that, ostensibly, defined the upper middle class romantic dreams of the nineties seems intent on making its impact on the Playstation generation. In this context, the linguistic concoction that is the title of Y films’ maiden attempt seems a trifle out of place. I understand the intended wordplay, but the odd phrasing seems unbecoming of the South Bombay teens it is centered on.

To please its target audience, the film draws liberally from an eighties icon, that progenitor of American teenage dramas, John Hughes. The stratified realities of high school, a gaggle of girlfriends, sagacious siblings and tongue-tied tech geeks are a simple evolutionary step away from the elaborate universe that Hughes constructed nearly two decades ago. The completely clueless parents of the protagonist are a metaphor for the everyday grind with which this universe maintains, at best, a tenuous connection. The teenagers’ lives happen right under the noses of blissfully unaware parents creating a conflict that is almost always sure to be resolved in an amicable manner.

Rhea (Shraddha Kapoor playing our very own Molly Ringwald) is hopelessly infatuated with the resident stud of her junior college, the titular Luv, played by Taaha Shah. Jugs and Sonia, Rhea’s best friends, are stand-ins for the ‘always in argument’ devil and angel over Rhea’s shoulder. Almost never in agreement, be it on Rhea’s romance or acceptable body fat levels, these two friends are the protagonist’s support system in the Hughes-ian universe. Much like Samantha Baker’s sixteenth birthday, Rhea’s eighteenth birthday seems doomed to boredom when her parents are called away on to Pune on its eve. Instead of ringing in adulthood at a classmate’s party, with a performance by her favorite rock star to boot, she seems set to languish at home: watching over a foul mouthed grandmother and an utterly precocious younger sister Minty (Jannat Zubair Rahmani in an immensely likeable turn).

If Luv ka the End borrows foundations from John Hughes, its superstructure is modeled after another 2006 teenage drama, John Tucker Must Die. Unlike in John Hughes’ Samantha Baker, not only is Luv aware of Rhea’s existence it seems he reciprocates her affections. His cloying manner, however, forebodes the deception that lies in store. A boy this slick is almost definitely too slippery to be a one-woman man and he is, but under far more insidious circumstances. When the token south Indian school nerd informs Rhea and friends of Luv’s duplicitous escapades, she first reaches a few logically inconsistent conclusions. But the spirit of friendship and female empowerment prove a potent combination. Rhea decides, with a little help from friends, to mollify her emotional exploitation by cutting her erstwhile boyfriend down to size. And, like Ferris Bueller, she needs to do it before her parents return.

As the caper that is Luv ka the End unfolds, one cannot but muse over the preoccupations and pressures of the urban teen, at least as they are depicted in Indian Cinema. Gone are the furtive glances and the rush of perceived acceptance. The song Tonight that starts out in a disconcertingly infantilized tone only to merge with a chorus of booming gusto, is in some ways a metaphor for the child woman that is singing it. She isn’t singing with the joy of a hidden crush but in anticipation of losing her virginity. Somewhere in the last decade the dilemmas confronting teenagers in our cinema seem to have graduated and so have the ways in which they negotiate them. One just wishes, however, that the niggling feeling of watching a transplanted reality didn’t impair our viewing experience.

P.S: An edited version appears in the today's New Indian Express. Link here. 

Sounds of the street

Eleven days, six lives, mystery and mayhem on the streets of Mumbai.

The titles of Shor in the City station us immediately at the lowest common denominator that is their locale, the streets of Mumbai. The film rests its feet firmly at the footrest of a motorcycle, constantly looking upwards, but its gaze is never aspirational. It is much more at home drawing its characters, even those alien to the streets, to the grime of its milieu. Over the eleven days of Ganesh Chathurthi personal moments in the lives three distantly connected people play out in Mumbai’s public spaces. There is a persistent, yet tacit sense that the city is always a part of the film’s proceedings and its people. While this is the natural order for some, their source of sustenance even, for others it grows from annoyance to dangerous.

For Abhay, played by an aptly cast Sendhil Ramamurthy, it is the criminal element of Mumbai that steadily encroaches and eventually harasses him in his professional space. As an Indian returning from the US, he bears the veneer of a wide-eyed evangelist of capitalist. He even meets Sharmili, his ladylove, in his native habitat - a nightclub (one that any metropolis in the world would be proud of). From the street goon who cons him for the contents of his wallet to Sharmili everyone has him pegged as a manageable stereotype at first glance. But scars, both physical and emotional, suggest that there is more to him than the fancy attire and he isn’t so much looking to a new future as he is hiding from a past.

Tilak, Mandook and Premal inhabit the same world as Ajay’s harassers. Their primary source revenue is theft, not just of easily liquefiable assets but also of intellectual property. Mandook is the runt of the group and the most given to exaggeration, never learning from the constant jibes of his friends. Of the friends, Mandook and Premal are annoyingly one note without a bone of self-preservation or an eye for consequence. Tilak is the only one who merits a character arc and a woman in his life. And for all his dangerous escapades, he can’t work up the courage to speak to his young college educated bride. Marriage sparks Tilak’s path to redemption, but the institution precipitates the problems in the fledgling middle class romance of Sawan and Sejal. Sawan is up for selection to the Mumbai team and politics have him distracted from the proceedings on the pitch. To compound matters, his girlfriend’s parents are lining up prospective grooms for Sejal. As he argues with Sejal on terrace tops, Marine drive rendezvous and main road intersections, Sawan realizes there is a universal panacea for his problems – money.

Shor in the City’s appeal lies in its matter-of-fact portrayal of the cracks in the system and how they never seem to stymie the constant churn that is urban life. From the police to the selection board, every attempt at preserving and nurturing order is only a corrupt version of what was intended. The only things that the film leaves unsullied are its relationships. Be it a silent invitation through the unhooking of a blouse, the vehement removal of an unwanted engagement ring or the caring enquiry about a scar the film’s best moments are in the sensitivity it accords the people it throws together. It is also the saving grace of a film that has no narrative engine.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's New Indian Express. Link here.

Superpowers v. Superstition

A mundane battle on school premises between science and superstition.

As children we are often advised not to talk to strangers. This, of course, is one of many cautionary statements that deserve evaluation. After all if we did not talk to any strangers the world would remain a fairly uninteresting place. People would largely remain islands if they didn’t interact, but whom do we let in and whom do we keep out? A purely cursory adjudication of affability seems insufficient. Sometimes, however, that is all the time and mental bandwidth we have. The intrepid adventurer in Disney’s Zokkomon has a similar split second decision to make. Purposely abandoned by his uncle, Kunal has to choose between the sandwich-stealing streets and a strangely dressed Kittu (played by a feisty Manjari Phadnis), who looks like she just walked off the sets of Khudah Gawah. Unsurprisingly, his instinct favors the company of the affable young woman.

Zokkomon serves up a curious fusion of childhood memories. From stealing mangoes to jumping in leaf beds in their spare time, the film’s children are shown to live quintessentially small town lives. Yet the film borrows liberally from the books of Rowling and Dahl. Orphaned by an unfortunate accident, Kunal moves from the city to his uncle’s home in a village filled with more than its fair share of ghosts, godmen and gullible people. The village school, run by Kunal’s uncle Deshraj, is at once an anglophile’s dream and nightmare. Its teachers preach that true humanity lies in the firm grasp of the English language and then proceed to mangle words well beyond recognition.

Deshraj is at once Kunal’s Vernon Dursley and Trunchbull of the village school, mismanaging the institution and turning it into a monument to his ego. If garish adornments, discrepant accounts and a spotlessly white statue in the courtyard aren’t a sign of Deshraj’s excesses then the sight of a library filled with broken chairs and no books is sufficient evidence of his embezzling ways. We are told little of why this man turned into such a bad egg, only that he has veered too far to return to the path of righteousness. In a rather telling scene, Deshraj’s wife returns his toupee to him, her countenance bearing a look of quiet disgust. Even his closest confidant, the one for whom he embezzles, would much rather gaze upon the image he has created than see his true self. It is a rare moment of insight into a man otherwise painted with broad brushstrokes.

Kunal’s journey in the film introduces him to two Ron-Hermione parallels. He meets the first set during his short stint at Deshraj’s school. Arju and Rani are his partners in crime, goading him to spend a crucial couple of minutes in a haunted house where he will eventually meet his second Ron – Vivek Rai, a scientist he will address as ‘magic uncle’. Kunal’s ‘uncle’ however does not recognize the affections of his nominal nephew. For him the child is only an opportunity to combat the superstitions of the villagers and the control Deshraj exercises over them. Over the course of their village saving mission, the man of science learns that, sometimes, people are more relevant than ideals. And we are informed, albeit in a rather simplistic manner, that while art and science should find a balance in the lives of children, there should be no room for superstition.

The United States of Goa

A story of guns, drugs and Pandora’s greatest narcotic – hope.

Well before there was foreign direct investment, affordable medical care or a burgeoning service industry, foreigners came to India. They came in search of a culture much older than their own – in search of history and spirituality. For some, their quest would end when they found Goa. In that little western corner of India, more than others, they were welcomed as long lost brethren. The vestiges of a colony still remain in a state that was brought into the fold less than fifty years ago and not just in the architecture. Those who call Goa home often cite antecedents elsewhere. Consider, for instance,  Dum Maaro Dum’s Celeste. His prized souvenir from a trip to Europe is sand from the village of his Portuguese ancestors. It doesn’t lie in an urn on his mantelpiece as a distant memory. It lies at the center of his cross locket – at the heart of his identity. Much like its milieu, Dum Maaro Dum is a curious mixture of East and West. The West undoubtedly inspires its cinematic technique, with its aesthetic sense of sepia and Innaritu-esque setup. But its larger concerns are in many ways Eastern. It may be replete with guns, bullets and hordes of hallucinogen abusers but these are just a few of the threads that weave the continuum its characters inhabit. At its core, Rohan Sippy’s film is about two love stories coming together to salvage the future of a third. It is a uniquely male fantasy and grossly idealistic, but its excess is well cloaked in the blood soaked grittiness that permeates the film.

Our first introduction, aptly, is to the youngest of the romances. At seventeen, Lawrence ‘Lorry’ Gomes is ill equipped to deal with the simple disparities that crop up in a relationship – a girlfriend who is academically more successful. While he and his girlfriend, Tani, have been admitted to Griffin University in the US, only Tani has secured the funding necessary to fly away. Without fifteen thousand dollars, the wings of Lorry’s Griffin dreams will be clipped and with them his future with Tani. Lorry is intelligent enough to foresee the destructive pressure that distance has on a relationship but not mature enough to accept it. So when an acquaintance from the other side of the law offers up a sordid mixture of temptations, Lorry dares to give his dreams feathers again. While love blinds some, it just fits others with blinkers. His gaze fixed on a future in the US with Tani, Lorry is blindsided by the long arm of the law – and these arms belong to Vishnu Kamath.

Kamath’s arms carry their own baggage – stained suitcases of corruption and ruddy remembrances of a family. The added weight, however, implies that when his arms do come down, they come down hard. Sent on special deputation to clean up Goa by the Chief Minister himself, Kamath plays the game like a man with nothing to lose: and much like his oddly named colleague Mercy D’Costa, he doesn’t. “We don’t ring the bell when we get home, we unlock our doors” he sermonizes to explain his take-no-prisoners approach. He constantly butts heads with the local Mafioso, Lorsa Buiscuita and his investigations lead him to Goa’s Keyser Soze figure, Michael Barbosa. His shadowy stature and the dread surrounding his name live even in the whispers of Goa’s police stations. The name immediately becomes the focal point of Kamath’s investigation and his very reason to clean the gutter he willingly entered.

Joki is the quintessential ‘sossegado’ civilian who would prefer that the gutter stayed out of sight and therefore out of mind. As an employee in one of Biscuita’s hotels he would rather look the other way than probe the origins of the money that finds its way in to his pocket. Even as his romance with Zoe becomes collateral damage to Biscuita’s drug regime, he continues to sing his ballads than take pre-emptive action. After all, an artist’s wont is to remain a fly on the wall and record events for posterity, is it not? As he croons the lack of phone calls and the disappearance of all that is vibrant at Tani’s going away party we are given to believe that he is singing what lies in store for Lorry. Only much later do we realize he is mourning his own loss – a loss that was again the result of his girl pursuing the wings of lost dreams. So it comes as no surprise that Joki is unwilling to stand by and watch as the same fate befalls Lorry. As he says to his friends, the fight isn’t just about Lorry but about all of Goa’s children.

The kitsch and machismo in the dialogue of Dum Maaro Dum belie a certain subtlety in the accompanying visuals. Kamath’s constant allusion to a metaphorical gutter is mined for a filtering of drains to find drugs flushed down a toilet and a wet day is not just one where there is a heavenly downpour of tears. The Zoe-Joki romance in particular unfolds in a touching collage of photographs – not on a facebook wall but on the more traditional refrigerator. The progression of the relationship from personal to distant is signified by the juxtaposition of intimate portraits with postcards from across the universe. We recognize that Zoe has replaced Joki with the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower and other locales from her dreams. There is an unstated homage to Shyam Benegal’s Trikal in each character’s current struggle with the demons of their past. The future shall always remain shrouded in uncertainty but it is in our power to hold out hope. And in the end that is exactly what the lost loves of Kamath and Joki provide both Lorry and Goa – Hope.

P.S: An edited version appears here.

The Indiscretions of the Bourgeoisie

Adulterous men, archaic tropes and juvenile humor in a film that still manages to garner a few laughs.

We rarely examine what brings a smile to our faces. There are patently absurd realities in our life, which when pointed out to us (after we have gained sufficient distance from them of course), can evoke only laughter. As a constant reminder of our inner child we continue to laugh at juvenile sexual innuendo and as evidence of schadenfreude there is the slip on the banana peel. But somewhere within the anatomy of a carefully constructed joke there exists, usually, a bone of surprise. It is this element of the unexpected that sparks our laughter. It is also the reason most jokes come with a quota of retells: a number beyond which they lose their sting and need to be retired until a new audience is found.

Anees Bazmee’s Thank You is filled with gags, some eminently past their quota of retells and others still on their way to the retirement home. Thank You’s universe borrows liberally from Bazmee’s earlier runaway ribald hit No Entry, so much so the 2005 release even makes its presence felt on screen. It is a universe where the leading men rarely have trouble landing not just one, but a bevy of women and are never bothered by why it is so easy for them. Vikram, Yogi and Raj are three friends, philanderers and partners in a rather ironically named yacht dealership. While Yogi’s wife Maya has already relegated her husband to the doghouse on account of his extramarital affairs, Raj’s wife Sanjana and Vikram’s wife Shivani remain largely unaware of their husbands’ misdemeanors. When a germ of doubt enters Sanjana’s head it opens the door for private detective extraordinaire, Kishan, to waltz in flute in hand to either solve or exacerbate the problem.

The casting choices and the narrative are clearly indicative of Bazmee’s intention to make the Raj-Sanjana marriage the focal point of the film. However, it is the inscrutably passive aggressive relationship between Vikram and Shivani that plays out in a far more interesting manner on screen. If Baazmee’s goal had been a true- blue screwball comedy, which is what Thank You ends up being for a majority of its time, he would have been better served milking this relationship for material.

Akshay Kumar plays Kishan, the detective with questionable intentions, more like a pied piper making the three couples into rats that dance to his tunes, rather than the eponymous God. He is obviously the star, the headliner and the comedy heavyweight of this ensemble cast but unfortunately that only means that he gets to dish out the largest serving of jokes nearing retirement. It is Suniel Shetty, with his turn as the hen pecked, almost imbecilic Yogi, who surprises us with a few well timed absurdities. While the narrative is filled with twists and turns, it was Shetty’s antics that brought forth the loudest laughs, probably because it was the unexpected surprise package. The rest is just old hat.


P.S: An edited version appears here.

UNACCREDITED

A sophomoric caper that doesn’t sweat the details.

The four word Herbert Spencer coinage, ‘survival of the fittest’, is a theory that students learn quickly in our educational systems. Not from an over-enthusiastic zoology teacher but from experience. This portion of their education is systemic. Competitive academics aren’t for the weak hearted and around this time of year there are rows of students who will fall in line with this analysis.

Ritesh Virani, F.A.L.T.U’s protagonist, is not one of those students. For him, the board exams are merely a hurdle that separates him from a summer of drinking, dancing and general debauchery in Goa. Entirely disconnected from consequences, Ritesh believes that our ‘flexible education system’ will find him admission to a college despite a barely passing grade. As expected, neither Ritesh nor his clique of underachieving friends, Puja Nigam and Nanj Nair, obtain that elusive piece of paper that dispels the real world for a few additional years – an admission letter to higher education. Vishnu, the fourth leg of their barstool of a group, has an entirely different problem – an overbearing father whose expectations have never met his son’s. When Ritesh conjures up a mythical university with the aid of Vishnu and a shyster rather snidely named Google (Arshad Warsi playing a cross between Circuit and Red from Shawshank) he is rewarded with a slew of real students: students forgotten by our rigorously stratified educational system.

The remainder of F.A.L.T.U is about how Ritesh, Google and Bhaji Rao, Ritesh Deshmukh playing a principal dressed like a prep boy, inspire a motley crew of students and turn their fake university into a fake vocational training college. The film is littered with so many songs and montages that it is impossible to escape the feeling that the film’s narrative is present purely to service its music and visual design. It juxtaposes moments of juvenile humor, best among them being hearing the eight times tables set to the tune of Munni Badnaam Huyi replete with a Darling Tere Liye chorus, with didactic sequences on how the educational system fails the very people it is supposed to help. Each member of the audience, I suppose, only need imbibe what is part of their personal syllabi.


P.S: An edited version appears here.

Raavan

In an adventurous mood today I set out to the PVR cinemas at AMPA Skywalk with the intention of watching the first cinema for which tickets were available. Fortune, and apparently Kalaignar Karunanidhi, favor the brave. What I was gifted with was a ten rupee ticket to Mani Ratnam's latest in Hindi - Raavan. Spondylosis inducing front row seats, but seats nonetheless. I had safeguarded my senses from the publicity onslaught and so went in largely unbiased.

As I walked out nearly two hours later I was left largely with a sense of what could have been. It goes without saying that this film is not for anyone who doesn't have a rudimentary introduction to the Ramayana. And Mani makes as much clear through Sanjeevini Kumar, his Hanuman standin. The only explanation he offers for wanting to accompany the SP into the forest is "So it is written" (roughly translated). And from there on the first half of the film sets an aesthetic of Hegelian proportions where beauty and darkness are blood brothers. The forest with its color and creatures, all in seemingly bacchanalian revelry, become an allegory for Mani's title character and his schizophrenia. He is at once savior and unsavory character, Lord and looter extraordinaire. In short he is every character Mani Ratnam has ever obsessed over. At times the film even speaks an unfamiliar visual language. In particular the scene we see Beera sitting in a circular boat staring into the rain only to flicker away as police raid his village caused a moment of cognitive dissonance.Faced with this I began to settle into a rhythm that expected the larger narrative to be, at best, a perfunctory portion of the film. Well, it wasn't to be. From then on the film searches for its identity taking small detours to character driven drama and even musical along the way. But along the way there are several sweet spots (BehnE dE being my favorite).

Some characters come off exceptionally well defined and the ones who benefit the most are SP Dev Sharma and Mangal. For all the 10-head baiting dialogues for Beera it is Dev who comes off as the person with the most shades. Just as in real life, it is quite difficult reconciling the metrosexual in Khili Re - cooking with wine and setting the riverside table for his dancing wife - with the ruthlessness of a police officer who would kill even a harbinger of peace. The fundamental difference in this telling of the Ramayana are the pre-ordained destinies of Beera and Dev. Having arrived purely to rid his jurisdiction of Beera, Dev'c clash with Beera was inevitable. Ragini becomes purely a deus-ex-machina, and an expendable one at that. And slowly but surely as the story unfolds I could only see Raavan as the railing of Ragini against the lack of control - the cries of a woman stuck in a completely misogynistic story. Dev's dharma is to kill Beera and Beera's is to oppose his oppressors. And they would do this Ragini or no Ragini. This ensconced brilliantly in the lyrics of BehnE dE. I began to see the song as the voice of someone seeking deliverance from constraints. The two female characters of any significance in Raavan (and quite possibly the Ramayana) exist purely to facilitate the men achieving their "destinies". What use does a woman have for the morality of such a world? If she must choose between order and abandon why not choose abandon? It is in presenting these questions in parallel to the main conflict that Raavan succeeds. It is also the saving grace of an otherwise, largely, schizophrenic film.

Love, Sex and Dhokha are #sameguy

Yes. The title is in twitterspeak. I have been spending a lot of time trying to condense my thoughts, but Dibakar Bannerjee's film reminded me that I used to enjoy the greater than 140 words universe. (Apropos of nothing though, one is sort of powerless when confronted with the accusation that every new internet phenomenon seems to lower the ADHD bar).

Anyway, back to Banerjee's voyeuristic aesthetics. In clearly attempting an indictment o the viewing public Bannerjee has, in large part, taken the element of surprise out of all three narratives. Yet it is to his great credit that the predictability did nothing to hamper my involvement. Within each of the three vignettes lay individual scenes of chilling brutality, humanity and frailty.

The cloying romanticism of the Yash Raj paeans in the first segment only add to the horror of the eventuality that awaits the young film student and his muse. While in large part those two foolish kids are annoying as hell with their cuteness, it is the inanit of their romance that makes their end seem so undeserved. Would it not have been sufficient to let them get a divorce after the disillusionment that is certain to settle in after a couple of years of marriage?

Mrignaina's coquettishness towards Prabhat after turning down Loki's threesome proposal is another lovely little sequence demonstrating the insecurities of someone whose self-worth is based on her attractiveness. While Naina is a cliched character, Prabhat turns the stereotype of a pushy investigative journalist on its head by giving him a rather unwieldy conscience. It is entirely believable, that this conscience is what Naina is taking advantage of with her flirting.

But the moment I would pick to represent the film can be found during the second vignette. Just as Rashmi gets ready to get intimate with Adarsh she remembers the camera. It is unique to see a director endow his characters with the sense of self-preservation which makes characters real. The sequence is also supremely enacted by both players. The few seconds that Adarsh spends motionless in front of the camera he pretends to turn off demonstrate that the three titular entities are inextricably intertwined.