Kartik Bhardwaj

The hills are alive with the sound of music. Music as in the mumbling song of an old man, singing in Kumaoni to the gods of the mountains. He smokes beedis as he croons downhill, his ageing wife being carried by two villagers behind. She has to be taken down often for a checkup by the nearest town doctor. As they ride in a mountain taxi (often a Sumo car) to the clinic, the old man can’t help but look at a funeral pyre flaming at the banks of a river. Death, a universal impending fate.

Both OTT and social media discourse were years away when Pyaar Ka Punchnama came out in 2011. Before people could understand the difference between feminine and feminism, the “Every guy’s pain” monologue had gone “viral” on messaging apps. Newbie Kartik Aaryan got overnight popularity but everybody later wanted to know who that “Liquid” (played by Divyenndu) guy was. Pyaar Ka Punchnama popularised the Delhi corporate slave lingo and gave people characters they could relate their frustrations with. Everybody in the film spoke in a rant-y way, concreting people’s (read guys) desires and disdains. It was a relatable buddy comedy before we caught on its overwhelmingly misogynistic lens.

Excess of anything will only lead to a spoof of it. After Dhurandhar opened a Pandora’s box of sharp spies infiltrating and extracting revenge from the “padosi mulk”, the misfits too followed suit. In the same vein of Happy Patel: Khatarnaak Jasoos and the recent Vibe, we get another spy-comedy Udta Teer, a Uno-reverse of Dhurandhar. It’s an amusing concept: a proficient Pakistani spy living as a mole in an Indian agency loses his memory after an accident and starts thinking of himself as a patriotic Indian agent. What follows is a funny, absurd situation filled with confusions, crosses and double-crosses. It’s hilarious till it isn’t. Sadly, novelty has a short shelf life.

There’s nothing better than a film that surprises you. I admit, I did preemptively box Prahaar: The Ujjwal Nikam Story as another propaganda piece– a subtler one if not of the blaring loud type. It wasn’t an unfounded opinion. If you read up about Ujjwal Nikam you will find an impressive CV. Before getting on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks trial, the Maharashtra-based lawyer had already served as a special prosecutor on high-profile cases like that of the 1993 Bombay bombings and that of T-series head Gulshan Kumar’s murder. If you research a layer deep, you will find that the lawyer was a candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha constituency in the 2024 Maharashtra state assembly elections. A Caravan article details how the BJP played up Nikam’s image as the lawyer who delivered the death penalty to terrorist Ajmal Kasab and reduced the whole campaign to be either for or against terrorism. Nikam lost the election but was given a Rajya Sabha seat by the ruling party in 2025.

At a time when journalism is reduced to either fact-checking or absolute sycophancy hadn’t we become pessimistic enough to jettison that starry-eyed reporter who “fought for the truth”? This constant conscience-invoking journalist, who barges into meetings to give it back to his seniors, who calls their colleagues “cowards” for not chasing a story, who doesn’t flinch even when he is fired, is a unicorn who exists only in the movies. But here me out, I am not saying there are no truth-seeking journalists, there are, but things are not as simplistic as it is shown in Reporting Live. I had to do a massive suspension of reality when I saw a character filing an RTI application in one scene, and getting the answers in the next one.

“Are you watching closely?” Christian Bale asks in The Prestige (2006). Across three films, the Drishyam franchise has taught the audiences how to consume it. You lean forward, sit on the edge of the seat and take in all the strokes of the picture. Remember this throwaway dialogue, this glance, this dangling plot point. It is a contest between you and the film. But will you really enjoy it if you win? Six months after the events of the second film, it seems that the Deshmukhs have finally moved on from the murder of their son, Sam. But soon Meera (Tabu) has the muzzle of a gun up her neck. Troubled by his wife’s dwindling mental health, Mahesh (Rajat Kapoor) seeks to reopen the case against the Salgaonkars. Enter the pensively-smoking Rajveer Singh Tomar (Jaideep Ahlawat), a crime branch officer who prides himself as the shani. He moves fast and concludes that if they can’t prove a murder has been done, they can at least prove that evidence has been hidden.

Mrunal Thakur and Huma Qureshi starrer legal-drama Pooja Meri Jaan–centered around a girl who gets entangled in an abetment case after her jilted lover commits suicide—drops amid powerful context. In the aftermath of the gangrape of a minor girl in a park in Delhi, central universities are erupting in protests. Women are out with placards, bearing catchy, diss couplets. How to really trust men when your feed is filled with videos of one of them forcefully picking a girl up with his hand between her thighs. The movie also comes post the Atul Subhash suicide case—about a techie who killed himself over allegations of mental harassment by his estranged wife and in-laws—and multiple incidents of women murdering their husbands and going-to-be husbands.

A public toilet becomes the contained outlet for the public’s rage in Bhed Bakri Bhoot, a 30-minute short helmed by Shivam Shankar. It all starts with a heartbreak. A jilted lover, a marriage-band player of everyone, scratches “Shalu I hate you” on the yellowing wall, as the trumpets of his paramour’s wedding procession blare the tale of his pain in the background. This wall becomes the writing slate of disses and desires. Everybody from a runaway bride stood up by her lover to a journalist quitting his job to an escaped convict, pens their opinion on the wall, venting out their frustrations.