One for the crossroad

 

 

Anjan Dutta has made the ‘parallel-stories-intersecting-at-a-common-background’ genre quite his forte. After “Bow Barracks Forever” and then “The Bong Connection”, he is back with “Chowrasta” (literally, ‘Crossroads’) which is pretty much the same superstructure as the earlier movies as four disparate characters’ lives intersect in sleepy Darjeeling. There is the over the hill movie star, Nandana (Rupa Ganguly) who is looking for a second wind, a tea planter, Jimmy (Victor Banerjee) struggling to come to terms with the passing away of his wife, a newly wed honeymooning couple Rita and Sunny (Aparajita and Naved Aslam) experiencing the first signs of marital discord and finally there’s a terrorist on the run, Kenny (Atul Kulkarni) who begins questioning his motives and his motto.

The diverse cast of characters sets up the story well despite the lack of any dramatic interludes, but the inimitable Victor Banerjee delivers a powerful performance that is the high point of the film. Otherwise, the rest don’t match up to Banerjee’s stratospheric standards though the cultural differences that lead to the rift between Rita (a Punjabi) and Sunny (a Bengali guy) are quite interesting. “Chowrasta”, though, fails to capitalize on the promise of a really heart wrenching drama and ends up as just an interesting story. Despite a run time of an hour and a half, the events seem to take an eternity to unfold, the effect perhaps magnified by the backdrop of the lovely hill station. Dutta again leaves you with a sweet tale if you are willing to be drawn into it, but you can’t help but ponder what could have been.