Ahista Ahista Review

It's the first day, first screening of Ahista Ahista (AA), and the cinema hall is half full / empty (depending on your leanings). Now that's really surprising. It should have been totally empty (now you can lean as much as you want). For, AA is one long and ahista journey to ...nowhere.

At times, you undergo a tortuous journey to reach a favored destination. At other times, the journey is fantastic, but at the end you feel like crap. But the plot in Ahista Ahista is an exception. Not only does it end at square 1, the encircling journey there isn't any good either. And man, it's slow. But you'll have to leave the tomatoes behind. The director has delivered as promised. AA.

In an age where movies like 2 Fast 2 Furious have come and gone, AA seems to have hit the Asspot. So what happens in this slow saga? Megha (Soha) is waiting for her would-be at a marriage office, where Ankush (Abhay) is self-employed as a witness, ever present to sign on the dotted line for a sum.

The would-be, Dheeraj (Shayan), opts for a no show. Having run away from home, and now without money or relatives, Megha finds herself in deep trouble. The friendly neighborhood witness docks her at a home for the aged, and slowly falls in love with her. Let's define slow. Imagine a small light feather falling in a draughtless, bottomless pit. Now think excruciatingly slow.

Nevertheless, hurt over the no-show and having taken one favor too many from Ankush, Megha accepts his proposal.

If all's well that ends well, the movie certainly needs urgent paramedical attention. The deserter Dheeraj finds his way into Delhi and the plot, and is now looking for his lost love. After some tomfoolery with trying to get him out of the way, Ankush falls out with a friend who leads the old wannabe right to Megha, armed with an unshakeable alibi.

And now, Megha asks Ankush what she must do.

The film does have some points on the non-negative scale as well. For one, it has revisited the aam aadmi hero, something amiss since Karan Johar stepped into tinsel town. It does have traces of the Raj Kapoor flick Mera Naam Joker, where the hero is not the larger-than-life cut-out, but one who lives in worse conditions.

When it comes to the acting, the lesser said, the better. That the actors successfully managed to recite their dialogues in the final edited version, now in hindsight, seems to be an absolute miracle. All of them, Soha, Abhay and Shayan, underplay their emotions, in a role in which was never too emotional in the first place. And the supposed comic relief, Khala, is an eyesore cum earsore, and should be told as much.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie is its music. But then, when Himesh Reshamiyya is the best 'part' in any assorted 'whole', one can estimate what the big picture is gonna be like.

As far as the story goes... that far it comes back too. Much ado about nothing. Back to square one. Life comes full circle, ahista, ahista.