Rahul Desai

Like most critics, I jot down notes while watching a movie. These notes are mostly factual reminders: character names, periods, places, plot details, specific scenes, lyrics, credits. When the movie is fine, these notes contain observations: thoughts about shots, metaphors, social pointers, puns, easter eggs and scene breakdowns. When the movie bombs, the notes become adjectives and verbal emojis: so bad, oh my god, worst, REALLY, what is he doing, come on, absolutely not. But when the movie is Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari, the notes look unhinged. For example, I see a note yelling: “Where is the damn leopard?”. There’s another note begging: “But why?”. Another: “Chutney or smoothie?” Another: “Eco-conscious writing, much recycling”. No context. Just madness. If I were to draw a mental map of how I arrived at a stage of waiting for a leopard cameo, the map would be an illustrated review. And I’d be an artist.

Inspired by the real-life journey of educator Mohit Tyagi and his platform Competishun, 13th is a five-episode drama about a venture capitalist who quits his job to help his former mentor build an ed-tech startup. It is composed of two timelines around a decade apart: the struggle of cocky IIT-JEE aspirant Ritesh (Paresh Pahuja) under the tutelage of crowd-favourite MT Sir (Gagandev Riar) is intercut with the struggle of corporate star Ritesh teaming up with a vintage MT Sir to turn this vision into a unicorn. The protege and teacher trade roles across phases; Ritesh chooses to ‘invest’ in Mohit the way he once invested in him. The ominous-sounding title refers to the term used for students who take a drop year after their 12th to prepare for the JEE entrance exam — like Ritesh does in Kota in 2005, but also like he figuratively does after getting disillusioned with startup culture years later.

Hope is the star-crossed protagonist of “Homebound”, a film that retraces the margins of Indian living as the layout of a ‘Snakes and Ladders’ board game. The pattern is unforgiving. Every time there is progress, it is inevitably punctured by a cruel twist of fate; every small leap is laced with the threat of a steep fall. An office peon impresses the bosses and gets promoted to salesman against the odds, but the feel-goodness is short-lived. A young factory worker sends money back home to fund a concrete roof, but his underdog-ness is transient. A bitter spat is followed by a life-affirming reunion, but the joy is brief. This constant snuffing out of hope reflects the skewed social structure of a country where everything — including emotions — are hierarchical. There is no respite; indignity has a pecking order.

Boong tells the story of little Brojendro “Boong” Singh (Gugun Kipgen), a naughty Manipuri kid from Imphal who sets out to search for his absent father in the bordertown of Moreh. It’s been years since his dad left home, phone calls have stopped being returned, but young Boong wants to surprise his single mother Mandakini (Bala Hijam) with the ‘gift’ of the man’s return. He leaves him voice messages to no avail. Their village mysteriously receives news of the man’s death, but Mandakini refuses to believe it. Boong notices her distress, so his journey with best friend Raju (Angom Sanamatum) into the unknown — into neighbouring Myanmar, even — is framed as a bittersweet Home Alone-coded adventure. The two boys reach their destination by hiding in a wreath next to the corpse of a friend’s grandfather in a hearse.

Since Bombay Velvet (2015), every Anurag Kashyap release has brought with it a sense of uncertainty. The general feeling is that — amid his tell-all interviews, frank ideologies, artistic generosity, acting, social media-ing, festivaling and exec-producing — his film-making identity has become worryingly shapeless. Will it be Kashyap enough? Will it be bitter? Will it be too political? Will it be indulgent? Will it be screened at all? He has diversified his legacy so much that it’s natural to wonder if he’s strayed too far (Choked, Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat, Dobaaraa) from the provocative swings that made his name an adjective. The perception is that something is lost, and it needs to be found. Nishaanchi, his latest, is infected with this anxiety of rediscovery. It is shaped by the search for his own school of storytelling, whose students are now everywhere.

Season 2 of The Trial: Pyaar Kaanoon Dhokha is infinitely better than Season 1 of The Trial: Pyaar Kaanoon Dhokha. (Last time I read it as ‘Dhokla’ because I had skipped dinner to review the show). The Hindi adaptation of The Good Wife — where a spirited homemaker (Kajol) starts working at a prestigious law firm after her husband (it’s always Jisshu Sengupta) is arrested for a sex scandal — is not screaming at us anymore. The background score is calmer, the film-making does not shove an exclamation mark in your face (it’s no longer Pyaar! Kanoon! Dhokla!), and the writing only condescends on Gen-Z influencers (one of them purrs “obvi-yoo” and “effing” to a judge) who speak like old people imitating young people and seek validation from followers because they are unloved at home. The real-world nods are naughty: someone mentions a powerful predator named “MJ Shah” in reference to a sexual harassment case; a Bengali lawyer delivers a monologue defending migrants and queer rights in defiance of a right-wing Maharashtrian politician; a rival is raided by the ED; a creep paraphrases a Mohabattein line to expose the abusive history of a colleague; a husband goes viral for quoting Will Smith (“keep my wife’s name out of your f*cking mouth” of course) to a nosy podcaster on camera.

In the pre-social media era, Bollywood movies about Bollywood movies were more concerned with the culture of film-making. Be it the spoofy excesses of Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om or the playful curiosity of Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance, the Bombay industry — creative cameos, self-referential dialogue, colourful characters, on-set adventures — was merely a stepping-off point for the stories. However, this genre is very different in the digital age. It’s now concerned with the industry and the average viewer’s perception of it; it’s more alive to the internet than the world we live in. The storytelling rides the coattails of reddit-coded gossip, controversies, self-aware humour, sly potshots and guess-the-celebrity rumours. So the N-word (nepotism) and the M-word (meta) become everything. The problem is that this gimmick is hard to sustain in the long format. Shows like The Fame Game and Showtime stumbled after the winks wore off.

Midway through Rohan Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears), the 30-year-old protagonist, Anand, listens to the story of how his parents met. His father, who worked as a driver in Mumbai, was visiting his ancestral village in the 1990s. He came to meet an eligible young woman, but ended up ‘choosing’ her uneducated sister because she cooked well; he arrived as a lonely bachelor and left as a companion. Years later, a heartbroken Anand is back home for grave reasons: his father is no more, and the family is fulfilling the tradition of a 10-day mourning period. Yet there’s a sense of history repeating itself. A young man is visiting with his mother to grieve the passing of his father, but it feels like a family visit to cure the loneliness of a bachelor. The formality of death is indistinguishable from the desires of life. Once the Mumbai-bound Anand rekindles his bond with a childhood friend — also illiterate, also someone who loves to feed — the ritualistic nature of loss conceals a quiet quest for companionship. After all, when a funeral pyre burns, sparks always fly.