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In all these years of watching and listening to scores of remixed music, never had I imagined that a song so peppy, flirty, and iconic 90s as ‘Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein’ from the 1993 blockbuster “Baazigar” could be turned into a soundtrack so sinister as in Netflix’s latest series “Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein.” The Hindi-language series not only remixes the song to sound ominous but also gives a menacing interpretation to William Shakespeare’s famous phrase: “For she had eyes and chose me.”

Vikrant (Tahir Raj Bhasin) is a fresh engineering graduate who has his life planned out. He has applied for an entry-level position at a steel factory in another town and is fairly confident about getting hired. Once he gets the job, he will marry his sweetheart Shikha (Shweta Tripathi Sharma) and leave his hometown to live happily ever after.

But just then the entry of an old acquaintance completely changes his life’s trajectory. Purva (Anchal Singh), an old schoolmate and the daughter of Onkara’s notorious MLA Akheraj Awasthi Vidrohi (Saurabh Shukla), enters Vikrant’s life to destroy it.

The Awasthi family is among the main reasons Vikrant wants to leave Onkara. His father works under and worships Akheraj, a ruthless criminal in the guise of a politician and as for Purva, her presence and advances even as children always made Vikrant uncomfortable. Now that she is back and all grown up, Purva’s friendship proposal for Vikrant has turned into a full-blown demand to marry her. As reluctant as he is, the pressure from his own family as well as the Awasthis makes Vikrant fight for his life, literally.

Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein is dark humor mixed with thrilling elements to keep the audience occupied throughout. The twists and turns till the very end are convincing, if you overlook a few momentary lapses. Right from the beginning scene where Vikrant, under distress, begins to narrate his life story, the film takes this tone of urgency and despair that become its motif.

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Director Sidharth Sengupta narrates the clichéd 90s Bollywood pulp fiction story in eight episodes of under an hour each. Although the storyline, like its OST, resembles a remix of various Bollywood plots and subplots from the 90s and early 2000s, Sengupta uses a modern filmmaker’s lens to create contemporary visuals that are enticing and entertaining. The setting, in a bustling town in India’s Uttar Pradesh, is captured to bring to light every detail, giving the audience an inside view of the people and life there.

The strong screenplay and storytelling of Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein is further strengthened by the acting. Tahir Raj Bhasin is an absolute gem in his role as Vikrant, a common man who has to fight tooth and nail to protect himself and his loved ones. Anchal Singh as Purva, the desi femme fatale looks at ease inflicting every possible pain on the star-crossed lovers. Saurabh Shukla, in a rare negative role, is still at his natural best as Akheraj Awasthi, the overpowering villain who makes life miserable for everyone who defies him.

Among the main characters, Shweta Tripathi Sharma as Shikha is a bit underwhelming though, borrowing her wardrobe and style from her 2015 film “Masaan” but her character lacks the intensity here. In all fairness to the actor, the writers seem to have strangely written Shikha as a submissive tool who is under the control of everyone around her but herself.

 Who should watch it?

“Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein,” is a solid entertainer that could cater to the audiences of thrillers with a pinch of dark humor. The whole series can be watched over a weekend. For me, I am already excited about the second season.

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Thriller

Actors: Tahir Raj Bhasin, Anchal Singh, Saurabh Shukla

Director: Sidharth Sengupta

Run time: 6hrs 30mins (Approx.)

One star

 Fiction

The Golden Rule

Amanda Craig

Published: 2020

Publisher: Abacus

Pages: 391, Paperback

I’m giving ‘The Golden Rule’ by Amanda Craig one star but I wish I could add a minus sign before it. It’s just horrible. The writing is preachy and pretentious. The plot, though intriguing (two women meet on a train and agree to kill each other’s husbands), isn’t well-developed and thus unconvincing. I cringed several times throughout the book. I was angry. I was upset. I felt talked down to as the writer almost screams at you to make you think the way she does. I couldn’t connect or empathize with the protagonist, Hannah, so entitled and annoying. I don’t have a single good thing to say about this book. It could have been a much shorter and better read had Craig decided to do away with her ‘social messages’ and just worked on the story.

 I hadn’t heard about the author but I picked up The Golden Rule as it had been longlisted for The Women’s Prize in Fiction in 2021. Also, the blurb was interesting and Bernardine Evaristo, author of ‘Girl, Woman, Other’, which won the 2019 Booker Prize, called Craig ‘a skillful storyteller who vividly dramatizes our lives with wit, wisdom, and compassion’. But wit and compassion are exactly the things that are lacking in The Golden Rule.

 The characters come across as snooty and rough when they are trying to be nonchalant and smart. The dialogues are mundane and clichéd. There is an instance where Hannah’s husband hits her and Stan, the guy she is supposed to kill but ends up being attracted to, rushes to defend her. Hannah’s response to that, ‘Please, stop, I don’t need rescuing by the patriarchy’ made me want to violently fling the book from the terrace of my home, which was where I was reading at that point. Who speaks like that? Who writes like that? It’s the worst line ever written.

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 The author has tried to tackle so many issues at once that everything feels forced and fake. There’s the issue of Brexit with Craig scrambling to explain why those who voted out did so. There’s domestic violence, single parenting, the rich-poor divide, losing a loved one to cancer, and how messy and complicated divorce can be. It’s almost like Craig felt the need to address all these important issues just to have a say in the matter.

 Then, she also brings in race, religion, LGBTIQA+, and acid attack in the last 100 pages. They are there as an afterthought—Craig probably went ‘oh wait, I didn’t include these issues’ and hurriedly made things up, adding a line here, a paragraph there. The book is an utter mockery of serious issues that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

‘Dream Piracy’, the first song of the movie 'Chiso Ashtray' directed by Dinesh Palpali, was released on 13 January 2022. With Ajar Jangam as the singer and Palpali as its writer, the song is about the struggles that accompany working to fulfill your dreams, in what is a reflection of the movie itself.

‘Chiso Ashtray’, which is set for a March 20 release, is produced by Mahesh Babu Timilsina, Rupesh Dhungana, Navin Dhungana and Sujan Khatiwada, with Ujjal Bastakoti as the cinematographer and Ujjwal Dhakal as the editor. The film is under the Kangaroo Creation and Local Cinema.

Anjana Rana Magar was only 11 when she came home crying one day, walking stiffly on her bruised feet. That day, she had played football barefoot for four hours as part of her training. She decided to give up football; she didn’t have enough money even to buy a pair of boots. But then her mother borrowed some from her relatives, bought her football gears, and pushed her back into training. Nine years later, 20-year-old Magar is the youngest member of Nepal’s national women football team.

She grew up in Rautahat, a place where women’s football is valued and many women national footballers have emerged. Rana Magar’s mother had a dream of watching her daughter play in national and international stadiums as well. She had seen other women footballers make history abroad and had similar dreams for her daughter. “Even though I wasn’t too enthusiastic about playing football in the beginning, my mother used to encourage me and push me to train,” Rana Magar recalls.

Carrying her mother’s dream, Magar started playing football young. Every day after school, her mother sent her off to training, and on days when the 11-year-old was bored or tired, her mother used to take her to training on a bicycle to ensure she didn’t miss a session. “What started as my mother’s dream gradually became my own,” the footballer shares, “and I started taking it seriously.”

When she was 13, Rana Magar was selected to come to Kathmandu with the girl’s team from Sarlahi. She was now trying to get into the national under-14 girl's team. “The moment I was selected to play for U-14, it felt I could do something with football,” she says. At first, Rana Magar used to play as a striker but later, at her coach’s advice, started guarding the goal.

In 2016, her team triumphed in the Coca-Cola Cup, a school-level game in ANFA. She played representing the girl's football team of Jana Jyoti Higher Secondary School in Kathmandu and won the title of ‘best goalkeeper’. That was when she discovered goalkeeping had been her calling all along. Representing Rautahat, she then got to play against the Nepal Army team at the Pradhan Senapati Cup in 2016. With three great saves in the semifinal, she had caught the attention of the Army football coach.

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To her surprise, when she returned to Rautahat with her family, the same coach, impressed by her performance, showed up at her house with an offer to join the Army team. She readily accepted the offer and came to Kathmandu.The same year, aged 14, Magar was picked for the U-19 national team after a rigorous selection process. “I remember coming to the All Nepal Football Association office for the first time and running straight to the roof to look at how big the houses here were compared to Rautahat,” she says with a laugh. In her heart, she knew this was a life-changing opportunity.

The more she played, the more she loved herself on the field. Her deep desire to make her mother proud kept her going and she started understanding that a Nepali girl can also dream of a career in football.

At 15, she was the youngest player in the national U-19 team. “I was loved by everyone in the team and they took care of me like a young sister,” she now shares.

While playing for the country at such a young age, Magar also made sure she did enough to clear her exams and ultimately managed to finish +2 level.

After years of experience in national and international tournaments, Rana Magar captained the national U-19 team at the 2021 SAFF U-19 Women’s Championship in Bangladesh.

Leading the national team was an experience she will always cherish. “I held the responsibility for the team and it was fun and challenging at the same time,” Rana Magar shares. Under her leadership, Nepal won against Sri Lanka and Bhutan and drew with Bangladesh, with their sole loss coming at the hands of India. Although the team couldn’t make it to the finals, they brought home the ‘Fair Play’ trophy.

Then the 11-year-old had never imagined football would one day be such a big part of her life. Sky's the limit for “Kanchi”, her nickname, who has already achieved so much in such a short time.