KAHAANI 2-DURGA RANI SINGH-Review

No, Kahaani 2 is not a sequel. The face is the same, but the person is different. So, very, different.

The film opens to a playful mood with an old Bollywood song playing in the background and a happy and calm ‘Vidya Sinha’ writing her journal, about a day well spent with her invalid daughter. They go to sleep together later, peacefully. Quite expectedly, it is the last peaceful moment of the film.

Because from the next morning, Vidya’s perspiring marathon begins. There is a building up of a subtle tension in the background as Vidya runs about looking super busy and tensed till the kidnap.

 Kidnap, cranky phone calls and a shocking accident later, Vidya lands up in a creaky hospital, comatose. Enter the scene, Inderjeet Singh, a sub-inspector, her ex, and the hero of the film. Vidya Sinha, finally becomes Durga Rani Singh.

A diary saves the time as it narrates her story to Inderjeet. But unfortunately the diary was really serving just Inderjeet and not the audience. Because Inderjeet being her ex, knew about who Durga was, we didn’t.

So we dutifully imagine and try to fill up the blanks in her story as she drops hints of a disturbed childhood, experiences of a sexual abuse and an ex-husband who hated her.

But what reason is working behind, when she forgets herself and almost obsessively starts following a little girl who she feels is going through an abuse. What happened in her own life that she is living a fugitives’ life in Kalimpong in a depressing ‘’tin-house’’. Why did her ex, Inderjeet hate her? These reasons, we never come to know.

What we do come to know is that Jugal Hansraj , to our shock, is not ‘Masoom’ anymore. With a moustache for support, he threats, he abuses and then very casually makes paper toys.

 Joining his team, is his maniacal mother, who looks like a zombified version of the Bollywood Grandma. This grandma arranges female goons to murder people, this grandma lets her own little grandchild get abused by her son and threatens her into secrecy, and this grandma doesn’t even flinch while matter-of-factly deciding to kill her! Hello? Is she mad?

This fanatic mother-son duo although manages to irritate you with their madcap activities you somehow almost miss the professional and mysterious ‘Milind Damji” of Kahaani 1 who had had this dangerous ‘Voldemort-ish’ air throughout the film, ‘’the one who cannot be named’’.

 This pair of ‘cunning mom-pervert son Asurs’ is certainly not strong enough to awaken our ‘Durga’.

And so, this harried Vidya Sinha aka Durga Rani Singh, remains till the end, just a stressed out helpless mother. She does NOT become the ‘Durga’ we expected.

People come and go in the hospital poking needles into her as and when they like. People get murdered in front of her an all she does with her ketchup-ed face, is beg for mercy. Her ex comes to her after reading about her ‘’dard-bhari kahaani’” and takes pity. She almost begs for help. Unlike the brilliant ‘Vidya Bagchi’, this one does not have any plan or agenda or confidence of her own. This ‘Vidya’ needs help.

There is a scene where Jugal Hansraj reincarnates, looking like a vintage era trader. It is supposed to be a serious scene,where Durga is confronting the vllain. But people in the theatre are laughing. Durga has come huffing and puffing with a bag-full of 1000 rupees notes,she shows it and tries to entice the accomplice. One is almost expecting the accomplice to say, “Yeh note ab nahi chalte Madam!’”

Kahaani 2 is a dark film. Literally and visually. You hardly see Chandannagar in the daylight and you never get to see 'the stand'. In the daytime, people remain indoors and you go out only when it's foggy enough in Kalimpong. Quite meaningfully, the light indeed comes at the end of the dark tunnel, and it is only in the last scene that one gets to see a clear sunny sky.

Tota Roy Chowdhury is a blink and miss. Manini Chadha as Inderjeet's wife has a nagging voice and her dialogues suit her tone. Kharaj Mukherjee is perfect as Haldar and provides the much needed comic relief. The errant grandma and her ‘dark chocolaty’’ son have acted well enough for the audience to hate them. An achievement for Jugal Hansraj. His accomplice in the kidnapping, the lady goon flutters like a disturbing mosquito in each of her scene. She is aptly quashed by a saucepan by Vidya (the first and last ‘violent act’ by her). 

I am a fan of Vidya Balan, the actress. I love that her characters always ooze out a calm and intelligent confidence. So this ‘Vidya’ disappoints. Balan plays it with perfection but the character itself, is unworthy of such  acting prowess.

Kahaani 2, very clearly, belongs to Inderjeet Singh aka Arjun Rampal.

And this time,  ‘He’, is the ‘Durga’ of the film.