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For once Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was on the money. Referring to Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplob’-led Communist Party of Nepal (CPN), he asked, how can an outfit that sets off bombs in public places, shakes down businesses, and spreads terror be called a political party? With violence at the heart of its modus operandi, the group has behaved more like a terrorist organization than a political party. The government was thus perfectly justified in banning it. Or was it?

As the CPN never registered with the Election Commission, some argue, it cannot be banned under existing laws. In order to do so, the parliament will have to pass new laws. But that is playing with technicalities. The absence of law should not deter the government from its primary duty: protecting its citizens at all times, and making them feel safe and secure. It could not look on helplessly even as its citizens were being killed and openly extorted.

 The kind of communist utopia Biplob and his party have in mind is just not happening

Unlike the CPN, the outfit of CK Raut that was pressing for a separate Madhes, with violence if necessary, had not ter­rorized common people. After it gave up its seces­sionist agenda and agreed to abide by the consti­tution, the government had no problem talking to Raut, and helping him make a transition to the political mainstream. By contrast, while Biplob says he is not averse to talking with the government, he has continued with his violent activities, even after the government released his spokesperson as a goodwill gesture. In fact, his party of late has reportedly been busy raising a militia.

Biplob and his ilk do not seem to realize that even though they may still enjoy support in some enclaves of western Nepal, their incipient rebellion is unlikely to get broader approval. After the bloody Maoist insurgency that claimed 17,000 lives, Nepalis have no appetite for more vio­lence. Not just that. The two police forces and the army, bat­tle-hardened during the insurgency, are far better equipped to tackle an insurrection than they were in 1996, the year the civil war started.

The kind of communist utopia Biplob and his party have in mind is just not happening. The sooner they realize the futility of their quest and give up violence, the better it is for everyone, including themselves. If not, they deserve to be treated firmly.

Amitabh Bachchan’s longevity in Bollywood as the lead actor is breathtaking. The veteran thespian, now 76, started his acting career way-way back in 1969 with ‘Saat Hindustani’. Fifty years later, he continues to mesmerize audi­ences with his unmatched screen presence and that familiar deep, resounding voice. Having always ruled the big screen, the mass success of Kaun Banega Crorepati has ensured that there will be no star like him, ever, even on the small screen. And yet his career, in both these formats, is far from over.

Anyone who has watched his latest movie, ‘Badla’, would know exactly why. Bachchan fans of late have gotten some amazing psycho­logical thrillers like ‘Wazir’ (2016) and ‘Pink’ (the same year). Badla is better still. This touch over two-hour dare-not-blink movie will hook you in right at the start, then take you down a roller-coaster murder-mys­tery storyline, before landing in a shocking dénouement. It’s as good a suspense movie as you will ever see, anywhere.

 Who should watch it?

Let us say if you don’t like a film that makes you think, and constantly rethink, your assumptions, then perhaps skip it. For everyone else, go book a ticket RIGHT NOW.

The film starts with the celebrated lawyer Badal Gupta (Amitabh Bach­chan) visiting the house of Naina Shethi (Taapsee Pannu), who has sought his services to get herself absolved of a murder charge. A wife and a mother, and an internation­ally celebrated businesswoman, Shethi has been caught red-hand­ed inside a hotel room with the dead body of her paramour Arjun Joesph (Tony Luke).

The doors and windows are locked from the inside; no one else has entered the room; Shethi’s guilt is obvious; it’s an open and shut case. Even with all the evidence stacked against her, Shethi is determined to prove her innocence and the only person capable of getting her out of the mess is Gupta, the veteran lawyer who has never lost a case he has taken up.

If you love murder-mystery, there are unlikely to be many better than Badla

The whole movie revolves around a three-hour-long lawyer-client con­versation inside Sethi’s apartment. The business tycoon recounts exact­ly what happened inside the hotel room; Gupta goads her to focus on the tiniest of details; and it’s a constant back and forth to estab­lish what happened that chilly winter night.

Nearly the entire movie compris­es flashbacks. If you think that is boring, think again. Written and directed by Sujoy Ghosh, you are guaranteed to be at the edge of your seat right through his tight-knit psy­chological thriller.

Bachchan pulls off another mas­terly performance as a ruthless interrogator; Pannu is as convinc­ing in her role as a businesswoman who does not easily trust her lawyer and yet who will literally lose every­thing if she loses this case. Amri­ta Singh convinces as a distraught mother whose son has been mur­dered, while Tanveer Ghani pulls off another commendable, if low-key, performance as her husband.

The film has no songs to break the tension, nor one extraneous scene. The psychological back and forth between Bachchan, the lawyer, and Pannu, his client, is intense, each constantly trying to outsmart the other, even as they pursue a common goal: her acquittal.

Without giving the plot away, the movie has minor flaws and the ending may not satisfy every­one. But if you love murder-mys­tery, there are unlikely to be many better than Badla, not even Hollywood vintage.

Movie: Badla

Genre: Crime/Mystery

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Amrita Singh

Direction: Sujoy Ghosh

Rating: 4.5/5

 Following the success of ‘Dhamaal’ (2007) and ‘Double Dhamaal’ (2011) comes ‘Total Dhamaal’. With a stellar cast and previous success of the franchise, this film however fails to meet expec­tations: for a comedy film, there are hardly any moments where you feel like laughing out loud. The plot is simple enough. Rs 500 million has been stashed away in a zoo in a town called Janakpur (no, not the one in Nepal). This leads to a mad chase for the booty among a bunch of eccentric and greedy characters. Among them are bad­ly-matched siblings, a bickering couple on the verge of a divorce, a conman, local goons, and a police commissioner. Their slapstick ride to get to the money first, complete with flying cars, falling bridges and crashing helicopters, is what the film is all about. Previous movies of the franchise were also about treasure hunts.

Who should watch it?

Fans of slapstick comedy could like, nay, even enjoy, Total Dhamaal. So might the old fans of Madhuri Dixit. Her pairing with Anil Kapoor is a nostalgia-filled walk down the memory lane.

This film packs in many inter­twined sequences within 2h10m of runtime with ease. The rath­er simple plot also makes the story easy to follow, even though there are a welter of characters. The lavish songs and dance-num­bers are also pleasing on the eye. Fans of comedy movies will get to see known faces in Bollywood like Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, Javed Jaffrey, Sanjay Mishra and Johnny Lever, not to mention the famous Madhuri Dixit-Anil Kapoor combo who have made a comeback in this film.

But the movie could have been so much better given its great cast­ing and a famous franchise name. Excess use of badly-executed com­puter graphics and predictability of punch lines are downers too. Dialogue delivery is sloppy, leading to poor comic timing, a problem compounded by equally bad editing.

Devgn, who has appeared in many hit comedies like the ‘Golmaal’ fran­chise, is a letdown. We have also seen better camaraderie between Javed Jaffrey and Arshad Warsi. The film does not do justice to their collective talent and performances they have delivered in earlier install­ments of the film. But Deshmukh does justice to his character of a conman. Though Johnny Lever gets far less screen-time, Deshmukh’s scene with him is hilarious.

Rest of the talent like Boman Irani and Esha Gupta are lost in half-heartedly written characters and poor dialogues. We are see­ing Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit together on-screen after a long time and this is the first mainstream com­edy where they have acted togeth­er. As a quarrelsome couple, they make for a potent combo. But given their filmography of hits like ‘Ram Lakhan’, ‘Beta’ and ‘Tezaab’, these two deserved a better comeback.

The director of the film Indra Kumar has said in an interview that another film will be released under ‘Dhamaal’ franchise, to be called ‘Full-on Dhamaal’ or ‘Triple Dhamaal’. If only movies lived up to their names!.

Movie: Total Dhamaal

Director: Indra Kumar

Genre: Comedy/Action

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, Arshad Warsi

Rating: 2.5/5

All seven passengers aboard the Air Dynasty helicopter that went missing in Taplejung on Wednesday afternoon have been confirmed dead. Passengers included Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Rabindra Adhikari and Yeti Airlines chairman Ang Tsering Sherpa.  

The helicopter crashed in the Sisne River that flows between the Lingkhim and Phurumbu villages in Taplejung. SSP Sharad Khatri of the Provincial Police Department Dharan confirmed the death of the passengers. “The bodies of all passengers have been found,” he said.

Minister Adhikari and his team of government officials had reached Taplejung after inspecting the Chuhandanda Airport at Tehrathum.

The list of seven deceased passengers:

Rabindra Adhikari: Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation

Ang Tsering Sherpa: Chairman, Yeti Airlines

Birendra Prasad Shrestha: Deputy Director General of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN),

Arjun Kumar Ghimire: Minister Adhikari’s PSO

Yuvaraj Dahal: Adviser to the PM’s Office

Dhurba Bhochhibhoya: Deputy Director of CAAN

Prabhakar KC: Helicopter captain

Constantino Xavier holds a Phd in South Asian studies from Johns Hopkins Uni­versity. Currently a Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at Brook­ings India, Xavier is writing a book on India’s crisis response and involvement in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. He is also researching the challenges of connectivity and security across the South Asian and Indian Ocean regions. A close observ­er of South Asian geopolitics, Xavier sat down with Biswas Baral and Kamal Dev Bhattarai to discuss growing Indo-Pak tensions, the Asia Pacific Strategy and India’s relationship with Nepal.

How do you view the recent terrorist attacks in Kashmir and developments in Indo-Pak relations since?

No doubt it is going to escalate. We do not know how India will retaliate. War is a big word, and there are many ways in which these two countries can go about it.

Is there a possibility of a repetition of the 2016 ‘surgical strikes’?

Surgical strikes, cross-border strikes, sanctions, mobilizations—there are all kinds of options before India.

What would be the regional implications of this conflict?

It is certainly not good for SAARC as the regional body has not moved ahead in the past four years because of tensions between India and Pakistan.  With the tensions flaring up again, the process of reactivating SAARC will be further delayed. Nepal has been pushing for the SAARC Summit, and other member countries have become increasingly impatient because it is an important regional organization, in fact the most important in South Asia. And regionalism cannot be made hostage to bilateral relations. That has happened with SAARC. With other organizations like BIMSTEC, it has not. 

Despite the tensions over Rohingya refugees, Bangladesh and Myanmar have continued to cooperate in BIMSTEC. I know India often faces criticism vis-à-vis SAARC. There are three or four instances when India tried to push regional cooperation through SAARC, including the SAARC motor vehicle agreement, a SAARC satellite and a transit corridor though India and Afghanistan. On all three issues, Pakistan consistently blocked the way.

That is Pakistan’s right, but the way Pakistan has bilateralized issues has affected the SAARC process. At some point, India said enough is enough, we cannot let regional cooperation be hostage to these issues and we will have to look for alternatives. Regional cooperation is not a monopoly of SAARC. There is BIMSTEC, BBIN, the India-Nepal framework on hydropower and transportation, and some triangular mechanisms. So recent developments have not been good but they don’t also spell the end of regional cooperation.

Beyond SAARC, how does the tension between India and Pakistan affect this region geo-strategically?

To cooperate, you need to be connected. SAARC has been unsuccessful for so many years because it is not connected properly. Earlier, India was defensive and a closed economy. And Nepal could not connect with China. Now, you have those options. You can also help bring China into South Asia. Now, there is a new world of connectivity. This is very different to the security-centered conflict between India and Pakistan. I do not see the possibility of war between India and Pakistan; and I do not see military escalation affecting the connectivity corridor between Nepal and China, or between Nepal and the Bay of Bengal, or between Bhutan and Bangladesh.

India and Pakistan want other countries in the region to take their side, which makes people nervous. In 1962 when India and China fought a war, Sri Lanka said it would be neutral and mediate the dispute. China agreed but India was very upset. India said to Sri Lanka that since it is an immediate neighbor, it couldn’t be neutral, and that it should not try to be a mediator. India said it was a bilateral issue. As a result, relations between India and Sri Lanka suffered. So there will obviously be pressure. In 2016 when India pulled out of the SAARC summit, it expected support from other countries. Several countries in the region supported India. Since then, many countries including Nepal have been impatient and saying that SAARC must be reactivated.

In case of a conflict, while there will be pressure from Delhi to take sides, no one is under any illusion that Nepal will give in. Sometimes, India also faces pressure from China and America to choose sides. It’s the same with Nepal. As an immediate neighbor, Nepal will have special consideration for India’s position, but it also has good relations with Pakistan, which it doesn’t want to spoil. Frankly, no one will really care. Smaller countries have learned to hedge their bets.

In your view will the national elections in India this year change its Nepal policy?

I hear in Kathmandu that the BJP, the Congress and various Indian communist parties have different policies on Nepal. Fundamentally, I do not think it matters much which party is in power in New Delhi. The broad lines of India’s Nepal policy are clear. Its main objectives like connectivity, interdependence, support for Nepal’s development will not change. You now have a strong and stable government in Nepal after 20 years of instability. I think New Delhi is clear that it has to engage with the government led by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. There is a good relationship between the two prime ministers, and between the two states and bureaucracies. So whoever is the prime minister in New Delhi, there would be continuation in Indian foreign policy. 

Do you think there has been a change in India’s Madhes policy after the blockade?

I do not have evidence to prove that the Indian state was complicit in the blockade. As a scholar, I can speak only on the basis of evidence and facts. What I can say is that the Indian government could have done more to help Nepal overcome the pain of the blockade.

Let’s assume India had no hand in the blockade. In that case, India could have supported Nepal. It could have airlifted essentials like food and fuel into Kathmandu. It did not. That hurt bilateral relations.

Let’s now assume that India had a role in the blockade, whatever the motive: support for the Madhesis, an inclusive constitution, etc. What instrument you use to pursue your interest is important. Do you use a blockade or diplomacy? Do you use pressure and what form of pressure? I think whatever happened, it left a bad aftertaste in bilateral relations. India learned that it has to respond to its neighbors’ demands and it cannot let neighboring countries develop anti-Indian feelings. So even if India had no role in the blockade, it could have done more to help Nepal during the humanitarian crisis.

How do you assess India’s current relationship with Madhesi parties?

The salience of the Madhes issue in bilateral relations has gone down. You see general statements about inclusiveness and diversity, but there are not prescriptive statements India used in 2015/2016 about what Nepal should be doing in terms of its constitutional and political arrangements. I think there is now a focus on delivering development assistance, implementing connectivity projects and diversifying outreach in Nepal beyond the usual groups of people who are friendly to India. No minority issue is permanently resolved. Every country has to continually work on diversity, bring in new people, redistribute. Even in post-war Sri Lanka, there is a continuous process of reassuring minority groups. Various minority groups in Nepal including the Madhesis want more rights. Generally speaking, India thinks nation-states need to be more inclusive.

Looking from New Delhi, how do you see the relationship between the communist government in Kathmandu and China?

China has always been around but its financial clout and emphasis on public diplomacy are relatively new, with a short history of just five to 10 years. All countries have to adjust to this new reality. I think India has gone through it. Now, India does not have a monopoly in this region. China is an immediate neighbor of Nepal. Often Beijing is portrayed as being far-away. But China is just across the border and is developing huge infrastructures on the border. Tibet is going to witness tremendous growth and infrastructure development. I think India is now focused on delivering because that is the only way it can pursue its interest. It does not have a special prerogative anymore. The best product is the cheapest, whatever Nepal gets it from. Nepal should pursue its national interest based on that. India’s clear focus now is on delivering more.

Is that because of pressure from China?

If you are a fan of connectivity in South Asia and believe Nepal and India should be more integrated and interdependent—in terms of infrastructure, roads, rails, inland waterways, airplane connectivity, data connectivity, educational exchanges, defense diplomacy—you have to ask why that didn’t happen in the past 70 years? Therefore ‘Thank you China!’ By coming into Nepal and developing that connectivity, China made India wake up to the importance of regional integration. India as the largest country in South Asia has a special responsibility in promoting connectivity. If Nepal wants connectivity with Bangladesh, it should have permission from India for the movement of trucks and data. It is in India’s interest to promote that, but it took China’s greater presence in South Asia for India to realize and speed up its investment in connectivity.

You have maintained that Nepal-India relations are still special, even though the idea of a special relationship is increasingly contested in Nepal.

On paper and in theory, every relationship is special and unique. Nepal-France relationship is special and unique. So is Nepal-Australia relationship. But I will speak to you realistically. As of today, geography, history and culture connect Nepal more to India than to China. Now, Nepal is saying it must change this and reconstitute linkages with China because it also has a long tradition of connectivity with China. Naturally, Nepal wants to diversify its options in order to reduce its dependence on India.  At the same time, there still are elements that make Nepal-India relationship more unique and special. Even today, Nepali citizens are allowed to join the Indian civil service and armed forces based on the 1950 treaty.  

Nepal could consider abrogating the treaty. But you have Nepali citizens serving as officers in the Indian air force. You cannot have Nepali citizens serving in the Chinese air force. In many ways, this is a vestige of the colonial era. The special treaty was signed on the behalf of British colonial players with the Kingdom of Nepal. 

The open border is yet another aspect of the special relationship between Nepal and India. Again, it is up to Nepal to decide whether it wants to do away with this.

How does India see the greater engagement of western powers in South Asian countries like Nepal and Sri Lanka?

The US opened its embassy in Kathmandu in 1959. It then started providing development aid. It is still a big provider of development assistance to Nepal. The long history of US-Nepal relationship is independent of US-India, US-China or China-India relationship. In fact, India was opposed to the US entering Nepal because it thought that would create tensions with the Chinese. India advised the US not to open an embassy in Kathmandu as that would encourage the Chinese to follow suit. There was cold war rivalry. But now the world has changed. Nepal is one of the dynamic economies in South Asia, and it has a young population. Up to the 1970s, Nepali students used to go to Calcutta or Delhi to study. Today they are also going to China, Singapore, Australia and Korea to work, study and teach. This is a different world that India has to adjust to. Now, India and China are working together in third countries. For example, India and China are jointly training diplomats in Afghanistan.

US interest has always been there in Nepal. The way the US looks at Nepal aligns more closely with the way India or Japan looks at Nepal than with how China looks at Nepal. That naturally creates coordination in policies. India, the US and Japan agree that Nepal needs open and free democratic institutions to develop sustainably.

Could you very briefly define the so-called Indo-Pacific Strategy?

The Indo-Pacific Strategy is a US document, one I doubt many people have read. It is a small security and strategic document, part of a larger approach called Indo-Pacific. Indo-Pacific is an alignment of worldviews and interests about how to manage security, growth, connectivity and development in larger Asia. You cannot separate these. People ask if it is all about security; yes it is also about security. This are similarities of views on the best ways to manage Asia, in particular as a response to the Chinese view. Again, ‘Thank you, China!’ I have to say because by developing the Belt and Road Initiative and thanks to its larger outreach across Asia and Euro Asia, it has also highlighted the need to develop alternatives.

You will be surprised. The biggest Indo-Pacific proponents often are not in the US, Japan or India. They are rather in countries like Sri Lanka and Malaysia that are now flooded with Chinese investment. They want India-Japan and other coordination mechanisms as alternatives. You do not want to depend on one country. There is an interest in balancing China. Many South Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well as South East Asian countries want more of India. You have to deliver. The Indo-Pacific Strategy is not a security alliance, it is not about containing China, it is not about defense. It is about having alternatives.

Alternatives give you freedom and autonomy. If I depend on a single partner, whether it is India, China or the US, I am hostage to that partner. By having more partners, I gain greater bargaining power. That is why India still maintains a very good relationship with Russia, and the US is upset with it.  The current impulse in Nepal is to focus on China, its next-door neighbor and the second strongest power in this world. Similarly, China here is taken as a reliable partner that has delivered in the past decade and it is ready to do more. While there is this inclination in Nepal, there is a case to be made to diversify. You should always keep your options open.

While our Foreign Minister was in Washington, the US State Department issued a statement that put Nepal at the ‘center’ of the Indo-Pacific. How do we understand this?

It means that when the United States talks about the Indo-Pacific and India, it is talking not only about maritime countries. It is talking about countries which have an interest in a free and open Pacific. This means bilateral relations based on transparency, mutually agreed-upon rules and sovereignty. 

This movie touches on so many themes so seamlessly, in what is also a beautifully woven story. You will be effortlessly transported into the crowded gullies (alleys) of Mumbai, India and into the minds of its dwellers who dream of a better life. For a Hindi cinema, ‘Gully Boy’ is revolutionary in many ways: in its pitch for freedom for women, its beautification of brown skin, and in how it tackles sensitive issues of class divisions and poverty.

This story is centered on Murad who is also known as ‘Gully Boy’ (Ranveer Singh). Tension mounts after his father brings in a new wife and financial pressure on the family builds. Murad finds escape in music. Loosely based on the lives of Divine and Naezy, two Mumbai rappers, this is a story of Murad’s journey to rap stardom.  

There is not a moment Singh appears anything other than a gully boy who believes in his dreams. The energy he brings to a film set is legendary, and he doesn’t falter in this film as well. Singh manages to perfectly capture the emotional vulnerability of a troubled rapper. In a pivotal scene, when he is denied entry into a night club, for he is only a lowly driver, he is shown listening to a rap song in the car outside, that steely look in his eyes to one day make it big himself.

Alia Bhatt, who plays Ranveer’s love interest Safina, is a rebellious feminist who has been born in a conservative household. Despite this not being advertised as a film with a strong female character, Safina is the feminist we needed to see in Bollywood. She is the backbone of Murad and fighting her own battles at home while trying to achieve her dream of becoming a surgeon, even as her mother only wants to marry her off. She is supportive of Murad’s dreams, telling him she will bring the money, if needed; and is an unabashed lover who breaks beer bottles on the head of any woman who tries to steal her love of 13 years.

Who should watch it?

Anyone who understands Hindi. Even those who don’t should watch it with subtitles. Stellar performances, great narrative and breathtaking music, it’s a complete package.

Siddhant Chaturvedi, who has debuted with this film, is surely here to stay in Bollywood. He plays MC Sher, a humble and strong street rapper, who is there for Murad at every step. He is Murad’s guide, and even when he loses to the Gully Boy, he is there helping Murad till the end. Other supporting characters also help bring the story to life.

This movie may be based on a cliché of a poor man with talent overcoming various hurdles to achieve his dreams. Yet there are innumerable household dramas and gully fights you find yourself riveted to. Perhaps in a perfect sum-up of the storyline, Murad says to his father that even though his dream and reality do not match, he will change his reality to match his dream.  

There is subtle comedy even in serious moments. The movie also effortlessly blends an 18-track album into the plot of this 2h30m movie.

This is not just a movie, but an emotional rollercoaster that will stay with you long after. Even if you are not a rap fan, in the end you will invariably find yourself humming “Apna time aayega” (the movie’s title track). Watching it once will not be enough!

Movie: Gully Boy

Genre: Musical drama/ Romance

Cast: Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Siddhant Chaturvedi

Director: Zoya Akhtar

Rating: 4.5/5

This movie based on Subin Bhattarai’s hit Nepali novel Summer Love (2012) was released in the Valentine week. Just days before, Bhattarai, who was involved in writing dialogues for the film, had expressed his disappointment with the casting. Forget casting. There is hardly anything good in the movie.

‘Summer Love’ has a conventional storyline of a guy (Atit Sharma played by Ashish Piya) falling in love with a girl (Saya Shakya, played by Rewati Chetri). Atit, who hails from Biratnagar, falls for Saya when he has only seen her name on a college board. But Atit and Saya hit it off instantly. By and by, Saya calls Atit to a party, where it is revealed that she is going to pursue her Master’s at a Norwegian university on full scholarship. Instead of being happy for her, Atit is discouraging and makes a fool of himself by drinking and vomiting in front of her parents.

Who should watch it?

If you can overlook bad acting in favor of great location and if Korean pop is your thing, there are bits and pieces you may like

When Saya leaves for Norway, they miss each other so much that Saya returns to Nepal to secretly marry Atit. Back in Norway, she proposes that Atit meet her father to officially ask for her hand in marriage. When he does, he is insulted by Saya’s father, who also rules out marriage because of difference in castes. This creates rift between Saya and Atit, and in frustration, Atit sleeps with Sushmita (Namrata Sapkota), who helps him get through the hard times. Atit later goes to Norway to meet Saya and gets nothing but cold looks. She acts distant and without revealing why, the film ends with a “to be continued…”

In the lead, Ashish and Rewati do injustice to their roles. You just don’t feel the pain of a couple struggling in a long distance relationship, especially when their parents disapprove. The supporting actors are more convincing though. Namrata does a wonderful portrayal of Sushmita, in emoting how she feels knowing he loves someone else. Atit’s parents, despite getting less screen time, show the love for their child with the acceptance of an inter-caste marriage.

This film is pleasing on the eyes. The locations and costumes are pretty. If they wanted lead actors to look Korean, they nailed it. Both Ashish and Rewati dress like the actors in the famous Korean drama ‘Boys Before Flowers’.

But this film as a whole is shallow. We don’t know where these two lead actors are coming from or about their family’s economic conditions. Atit looks like a rich dude covered in expensive clothes but he actually rides a public bus. Also, he lives in a fancy room and gets the job of a project manager in a company but a short scene shows him taking a loan of Rs 3 lakh. So many things are unclear. It is disappointing to sit for this long film and not know what happens in the end. Just tell us already!

The plot of this 2h 36m movie is so slow you may catch a nap and not miss anything, unless you are hooked to the unnecessarily long exchange of looks between different characters. The overuse of background score whenever Saya and Atit are together, apparently to compensate for the missing on-screen chemistry, is tacky too. The book may be good; not this movie.  

Movie: Summer Love

Genre: Romantic drama

Rating: 1.5/5

Cast: Rewati Chetri, Ashish Piya, Suraj Singh Thakuri

Director: Muskan Dhakal

Not every seven-year-old has a grandmother for a best friend but clever and curious Elsa does. And her grandmother isn’t like yours or mine. She breaks into zoos in the mid­dle of the night, gets chased by the police, throws turds at them and, to Elsa’s delight and dismay, has horrible spelling. She is also Elsa’s key to the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the kingdom of Miamas where she gets to be a knight and ride cloud animals.

This is where Elsa goes to escape reality—being bullied in her class for using long words or the fact that her mom is pregnant with her half sib­ling, whom she calls Halfie, and who will, she believes, make her mom love her less.

Granny might be crazy for some but for Elsa she is a super-hero. Then Elsa overhears that Granny has can­cer and the world that Granny has so carefully constructed for Elsa falls apart and Elsa struggles to forgive her. And, to make things worse, Granny dies. But before that she sends Elsa on a mission whereby she has to deliver some letters to people. What follows is a merging of reality and the Land-of-Almost-Awake.

 Backman is a skilled storyteller and his greatest strength is his ability to seamlessly merge humor and seriousness

Every story that her grandmother has ever told her (that happened in Miamas or other fairytale land) seems to be unfurling right before her eyes, and every character she met or hid from at the Land-of-Al­most-Awake has a real life coun­terpart. It’s through discovering these characters that Elsa ulti­mately forgives her grandmother for dying.

Heartbreaking yet hilarious, ‘My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises’ will charm you and make you see the world from an almost-eight-year-olds’ perspective, which really isn’t a bad thing if you think about it.

Backman is a skilled storytell­er and his greatest strength is his ability to seamlessly merge humor and seriousness in his writing. The only downside for those of us who have read Backman’s other work, namely ‘Britt-Marie Was Here’, is that you get to meet Britt-Marie in My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises as Elsa’s nosy and annoying neighbor.

For those who have already taken to her eccentric ways in Britt-Marie Was Here, that’s a little disheart­ening. However, Elsa teaches you a thing or two about loss, grief, anger, and ultimately forgiveness that makes My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises a sto­ry you are not likely to forget any time soon.

Book: MY GRANDMOTHER SENDS HER REGARDS AND APOLOGISES

Author: Fredrik Backman

Genre: Fiction

Translated from the Swedish by Henning Koch

Publisher: Sceptre

Pages: 353, Paperback