Slow and Steady

Director Shivam Nair talks about life before and during his debut film Ahista Ahista. He has two very "likeable" leads in Soha Ali Khan and Abhay Deol (the music is not so likeable though and publicity seems to have been hijacked by the Ol'Factory - thankfully, the people involved are aware of it)). Nair's own story is one of many who had a confused dream surrounding the film industry, so it's good to see that life has turned out decently in the end.

In the interview, Nair talks about the story of the film being inspired by a real-life incident that happened to a friend of Imtiaz Ali (the writer, and maker of Socha Na Tha). The plot sees Deol playing a professional "witness" at a marriage bureau, while Soha Ali Khan has run away from home and is waiting outside the bureau for her beau to show up (he doesn't). Now, interestingly, I've seen an episode with a similar plot in the Star Plus series Star Bestsellers that aired a few years ago (the series still airs occasionally on weekends on one of the lesser Star channels these days). Imtiaz Ali must have had something to do with that, given the TV work these guys have done.

Star Bestsellers was quite a wonderful attempt at giving many new and lowkey directors and writers a chance to film an hour-long story. There were some excellent efforts such as: by Tigmanshu Dhulia; a typically morbid serial-killer story by Anurag Kashyap featuring Kay Kay; a cool women-oriented tragi-comedy directed by Rajit Kapur featuring Mita Vashist, Rajeshwari Sachdeva and Surekha Sikri; a meditative one with the real-life mother and daughter Seths (Sushma and Divya) playing mother-in-law and daughter-in-law!; a comic psycho-thriller with Irrfan and Deepak Quazir; another plot-with-a-twist with Irrfan, Raghuvir Yadav and Himani Shivpuri; Rajit Kapur and Rajeshwari Sachdeva in a tale about a talented actor laid waste by drink and loss of confidence; more Irrfan as a Bangla director who shatters some myths that a left-leaning art-film worshipping Vrajesh Hirjee lives his life with; and most brilliantly of all, an episode called "Dead End" with Mona Ambegaonkar, Raj Zutshi and many more that is one of the most atmospheric thrillers I have ever seen in my life, and one that would make Hitchcock or Shyamalan proud. I regret to say that I don't remember who made the last-mentioned one (it was some lady), and unfortunately, I haven't been able to see it recently. But for being a heady mix of entertainment and experiment, the series was a breath of scented air.