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A.R. Rahman, the legendary musician from India who has also made a name for himself in the global music arena, had apparently penned the script for “99 Songs” back in 2011. The film was announced in 2013 under a different banner, when Rahman decided that he would produce the film under his own YM Movies. So after almost a decade since its inception, the film finally launched on Netflix in April under Rahman’s production. 

“99 Songs”, a dream project of Rahman, and also his debut work as a film-writer and producer, is supposedly a love saga. Of course, it was always going to be a musical with Rahman composing the music. Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy directs the Hindi-language movie which has also been dubbed in Tamil and Telugu. 

It is kind of complicated to explain the film’s story in so many words because with Rahman’s imaginations coming into play, the storyline becomes a mix of simple yet complicated plots. Jay (Ehan Bhat), a college student and an aspiring musician, is in love with his college mate Sophie (Edilsy Vargas), a budding fashion designer/visual artist. 

When Sophie’s music mogul father Sanjay Singhania (Ranjit Barod) hears about their affair, he approaches Jay with a condition he has to fulfil before he can marry Sophie. Sanjay is developing an AI streaming service for which he needs 100 songs and Jay is to compose all those songs before he can marry Sophie. 

Jay agrees and as his friend and bandmate Polo (Tenzin Dalha) suggests, he heads out to Shillong because “it is the best place in the world to make music.” In Shillong, Jay starts off well with writing new music but quickly loses inspiration. So Polo gets him a job as a pianist at the local jazz bar where Jay meets the mysterious singer Sheela (Lisa Ray) who later becomes his mentor and close friend. Then disaster strikes and things take a bad turn for our protagonists and their aides. 

In all honesty, 99 Songs feels like it draws a lot of influence from past Bollywood films, as if Rahman did a school project on Bollywood films as he watched them by the dozens. The film itself starts like a Karan Johar production and in the latter half becomes something Sanjay Leela Bhansali would make. You’ll have to watch the movie to understand the connection. 

Also, the widely publicized news about the makers auditioning more than 1,000 people for lead roles seems fake news. Acting is much below par, with lead actors Ehan Bhat and Edilsy Vargas desperately failing to display the passion their characters demand. Their dialogue delivery feels like they are acting in a high-school play staged by science students who’d rather go back to studying than give extra effort to their performance. The north-east Indian characters in the film, including Tenzin Dalha as Polo, are the only cast who look natural. Everyone else is either trying too hard or not bothered at all. 

Now comes the most disappointing part of the movie. For a film written, produced (Rahman), directed (Krishnamoorthy) and also acted (Barod/Rahul Ram) by musicians, the music of 99 Songs is painfully underwhelming. Rahman does try to assimilate all his musical influences into this musical production, but not a single soundtrack stands out. The genres of music vary from Indian classical to modern pop and rap but nothing sounds even a fraction like the musical benchmark Rockstar (2011), where Rahman gave some of the most memorable music ever created in Bollywood. Had it not been for the film’s excellent cinematography and editing, the 2hr 8mins long film would have been totally unwatchable. 

Who should watch it?

A word of caution: maybe my high expectations from a Rahman musical were too high. As mentioned, the cinematography is beautiful. And a plus of us Nepalis is, our own Manisha Koirala is in the film as a psychologist, although her role could have been given to any real-life medico and nobody would have noted a difference. Still, there are a few moments in this highly layered film that can be entertaining for some, especially Rahman fans.  

Rating: 2 stars
Genre: Musical, romance
Actors: Ehan Bhat, Edilsy Vargas, Tenzin Dalha
Director: Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy
Run time: 2hr 8mins

Ghalib (Suvinder Vicky), an aging trucker struggling with chronic back-pain, leads a lonely life divided between driving long hours and resting at his small Delhi apartment. His wife of two years has recently died by suicide and he still struggles to come up with a valid reason. They had disagreements and had stopped talking at the time she died, but he had never expected her to take the drastic step. 

A dedicated workman who is looked up to by his colleagues and adored by his employers, Ghalib’s struggle with mental peace and his aching back make him slightly slack off work, something he had not done before. Living a life between milestones in the highways, Ghalib also finds that he has done  500,000 km on the road, the first person in the transport company to do so. 

At the same time, Ghalib realizes his precarious position. On the one hand, his village panchayat back in his hometown in Punjab has decided that he will pay a lump sum in compensation to his wife’s family, which could mean giving up his life’s savings. On the other hand, he is intimidated by the presence of a young intern Pash (Lakshvir Saran), who he fears might replace him. Ghalib has traveled for thousands of miles in his line of work, but when it comes to his own life, he does not know where to go. 

The uncertainties and fears in Ghalib’s life make the story of the Hindi-Punjabi language film “Milestone” (originally, “Meel Patthar”). Co-written and directed by Ivan Ayr, this arthouse cinema first premiered at  the 77th Venice International Film Festival in September 2020 and was screened in various other film festivals around the world before being released on Netflix in May 2021. 

Milestone is a multi-layered film that not only explores the human psyche but also exposes the inequalities in the society and the dynamics between employers and employees, the haves and the haves-not. To an employer, a worker is only good till they can give their best. One sign of weakness and the employer does not hesitate to think of firing even the best employee. The employee for his part is ready to be fired, ready to be replaced by someone younger. This is Ghalib’s situation even as he battles doom and despair in his life. The company that he gave his youth to and sacrificed many sleepless nights for might replace him with someone younger.

The film uses multiple long shots and a bluish color scheme to make the audience internalize the poignancy in the lives of Ghalib and other minor characters attached to him. Every character in every situation in the film feels like a metaphor, something open for the audience to interpret. And the actors, almost all unknown faces with little information about them on the internet, add authenticity to the realistic storytelling. 

Ghalib is riddled with conflicts and so are other characters. But the film does not take it upon itself to resolve them. Milestone makes the audience travel into people’s lives and then leaves them to find their own way. The film progresses at a slow, sluggish pace, giving the audience enough time for self-realization. Like Ghalib’s life, the film goes nowhere. It’s a journey into a world full of metaphors and self-realization. 

Who should watch it?

Ghalib is a close representation of art-films. So naturally the film might not entertain all those used to watching the more conventional kind. The pace is slow and the runtime of 1hr 38mins might feel excruciatingly long if you fail to connect with its theme. But if you do, Milestone is a journey worth taking. 

Many times, I hear readers and booktubers rave about a particular book. I want to read it. But I don’t find it for the longest time. By the time I do, I know a lot about the story and the author and I’m a little in love with it already. I put off reading it for a while to prolong the anticipation, often displaying the book on my bookshelf so I can see it every day. That book is kept aside for when things aren’t going well and I need to get lost in a story or when I’m on a break and need to detach.

I hype the book so much in my head it rarely ever lives up to it. I’m not disappointed but it’s never as good as I think it will be. But Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ surpassed my expectations.

The title made me happy. I was, however, unprepared for the rollercoaster ride of emotions I was in for. The narrative structure is a bit confusing but Vuong’s debut novel is tender and powerful. The book is a letter from a son to a mother, only she can’t read: “Dear Ma, I am writing to reach you—even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are.” Just the idea of it gave me goosebumps right from the start.

The narrator is Little Dog, a Vietnamese immigrant in the US, who explores his family’s history, the violence there was over generations, and his understanding of sexuality. Writing to his mother is also Little Dog’s way of trying to find closure. We learn that his mother, Rose, was violent, often throwing a box of legos or a jug of milk at him. His relationship with his boyfriend, Trevor, later on also mimics his equation with his mother. In a way, his relation with Rose becomes his life’s governing factor. Whatever he goes through and how he feels and reacts to it come from her.

At times, the novel reads like an autobiography. There are scenes and memories that seem to come from the author’s own experience. They feel too vivid to be anything but real. The writing is choppy but lyrical and thus impactful. You sometimes struggle to keep up with what’s happening but you are so caught in the midst of it all that it doesn’t matter. You keep reading, hoping things will eventually make sense and they always do.

Vuong is an award-winning poet whose 2017 debut poetry collection, ‘Night Sky with Exit Wounds’, won both a Forward prize and the TS Eliot prize. Towards the end of the book, the writing takes on a prose poetry format. I don’t recall having come across this kind of writing style before and the novelty of it was refreshing. All in all, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a different kind of storytelling. It’s chaotic, it’s nothing like you’ve ever read—bordering on fiction and non-fiction—and it’s simply gorgeous.

When you read what feels like the perfect opening sentence, you just know everything is going to fall into place and that the book will make you either think, weep, or laugh. And if the writer really knows her subject and characters, then even all three. Avni Doshi’s debut novel ‘The Girl in White Cotton’ falls into the latter category, evoking a mix of emotions you struggle to contain.

The opening line—‘I would be lying if I said my mother’s misery has never given me pleasure’—hints at the unraveling of a complex relationship. Stories where a relationship is the crux of the narrative are, in my experience, rarely disappointing. Here, it’s a mother-daughter relationship that is being explored.

The story is narrated by Antara who had a tricky relationship with her largely detached mother, Tara, as she was growing up. Tara never prioritized Antara’s wellbeing and happiness and thus she had a difficult childhood. Then Tara starts forgetting things and Antara finds herself having to care for her. Antara struggles with conflicting emotions, torn between what feels like love and the need to put the past in the past.

What makes The Girl in White Cotton better than most books based on relationships between parents and children is the fact that the characters feel so real—you identify with their traits and behaviors and you see glimpses of yourself in them. The story too is raw and relatable. Doshi’s writing is sharp, witty, and empathetic. This was one of the very few books where I found myself marking lines and entire pages just to reread them later on. And I have done so many times already since I finished reading it at the start of 2021. 

Alternatively published as ‘Burnt Sugar’ in the UK (after it was originally published in India as The Girl in White Cotton in 2019), the novel was shortlisted for The Booker Prize 2020 and named NPR’s Best Book of 2020. Every media raved about it and it sold many translation rights much before the Booker Prize winner was announced. Though Douglas Stuart’s ‘Shuggie Bain’ won, I feel Shuggie Bain and other Booker Prize shortlists didn’t get as much attention and love as Doshi’s book. But having read it, loved it, and recommended it to over a dozen people, I’m no longer surprised that the book got as much press as it did.

The Girl in White Cotton or Burnt Sugar, whichever title sounds better to you (though I prefer the former), is a story about many things—family, love, relationships, responsibilities and obligations, unresolved issues, memory and how it fails us, trust, and how life is never ever neatly packaged but precious nonetheless. With so many serious issues, the story has all the potential to go haywire. But you would be surprised how beautifully Doshi has managed to tie all of them together. The result is a story that catches you off-guard while reading and then continues to haunt you long after.

Rating: 4 stars
Fiction
The Girl in White Cotton
Avni Doshi
Published: 2019
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Language: English
Pages: 277, Paperback