Waiting: Movie Review
Tara Deshpande (Kalki Koechlin) receives a phone call that informs her that her husband has met with an accident that has him lying in coma. She has just got married to Rajat Deshpande who has met with the accident in Kochi while on a work trip. Tara and Rajat have married against their parent’s wishes. Should she inform them of the accident? Should she just wait for something… anything to happen? When she meets the doctor, she wants to know if her husband will live. And then wants to know if he will be able to ever get back to the active lifestyle he has enjoyed so far.Tara meets Shiv Nataraj (played by a brilliant-as-usual Naseeruddin Shah) whose wife Pankaja (played by Suhasini Maniratnam) has been comatose for eight months. The doctor (Rajat Kapoor) refuses to operate on her. Shiv is convinced that the doctor is motivated by money and is determined to raise the money even if it means going bankrupt.Tara and Shiv strike up a relationship in the waiting room. Tara laments that for all her followers on Facebook and the 5000+ followers on Twitter, there is no one she can turn to. Digital friendships do not lend us a hand when we need them. Shiv hears the rant and asks basic question, “What is Twitter?”. Tara and Shiv are studies in contrast. He has been married for 40 years. She is new to matrimony. She is pragmatic and believes that quality of life is more important than just being medically alive. He believes that if only the doctors perform the operation that he has read up about, his wife will get out of coma.The decisions that happen as people wait for their loved ones who are battling their odds of survival are beautifully sketched out. Should she let the doctors operate on her comatose husband? What if he dies on the table? What if he lives but in a vegetative state? Everyone around seems to be so unhelpful.The snippets of conversations between Shiv and Tara are ever so natural and spontaneous.“Do people dream when they are in coma?” Tara asks Shiv and then adds, “He better be dreaming about me.”Shiv has the advantage of having seen his loved one in this state for months together and keeps telling Tara what to expect. He mocks what he says all doctors will tell you gravely, “The next 48 hours will be crucial.” Shiv is a cynic when it comes to doctors and hospitals, but clings on to the sliver of hope that maybe someday his wife will wake up from her slumber and together they will resume the life that has been on hold.https://youtu.be/fhnbNJacdAQKalki’s performance in this film is strong but it is nowhere in the league of the powerhouse performance she put up in Margarita with a Straw (click here). When Shiv explains the stages of grief to Tara, I was reminded of Naseeruddin Shah’s performance in Dedh Ishqiya where he explains the seven stages of love. Persian literature refers to seven stages of love that begins with attraction (dilqashi or hub); infatuation (uns); love (mohabbat) is the third stage; the fourth stage is one of reverence (aqidat); reverence gives way to worship (ibaadat) and evolves to the sixth stage of an obsession (junoon); death (maut) is the seventh and final stage of love.The other characters of the story seem relative lightweight, whether it is Rajat Kapoor as the doctor or Kalki's friends or even Shiv's wife. These would have made a lovely film even better.If like me you have spent time in the waiting room of a hospital waiting for the waiting to end, you will resonate with the film.----------Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduriRead more about Dedh Ishqiya <click this>Read about Kalki in Margarita With A Straw <click this>