‘Dus Kahaniyaan’- Ten stories in one film

The visions of seven directors merge in one 'Dus Kahaniyaan' an epic in scale yet meticulously observed is now being screened at New Olympia Cinema Maradana. Dus Kahaniyaan's themes run the gamut from loss and betrayal to uprootedness and alienation, and that makes for absorbing entertainment. The film takes one on a tour of expansive highways and modern romance, of kindly strangers, of lives lived in the realms of power and lives freed from the gloom of oppression. Fortunes are made and squandered and love lost and rediscovered.

One of the best short stories in the film, 'Matrimony' by Sanjay Gupta has Mandira Bedi playing a bored wife of a businessman (Arbaaz Khan ). Secretly, she is having an affair with another man (Sudhanshu Pandey). The affair comes to an end when he has to leave the city.

'High On the Highway' film by Hansal Mehta is slightly ambiguous as the doped minds of its protagonists - Jimmy Shergill and Masumeh Makhija, film students who like to get high and hit the highway. But their lives change on the fateful, farewell night after an incident on the highway.

Meghna Gulzar's Puranmaasi set in a small village in Punjab, a mother (Amrita Singh ) gladly conducts the engagement ceremony of her daughter ( Minissha Lamba ). As Amrita's rude talking husband leaves to buy things in the city, the daughter (Minissha) dresses her mother with her own engagement dress and choodiyan, just to see how Amrita looked as a bride. It is the night of the full moon, the night when someone from Amrita's past comes calling on her doorstep.

In 'Zahir' Manoj Bajpai , a struggling writer shifts in as the next-door neighbour of Dia Mirza . In no time the two become thick friends. He makes the first move and kisses her. She rebuffs and walks away. Then a disturbing truth about Dia comes to the fore. But there is another truth that is more shocking than this one.

Beautifully shot, 'Strangers in the Night' by Sanjay Gupta is a tad disappointing. Neha Dhupia plays a wife telling one of her secrets to her husband Mahesh Manjrekar. This is a ritual the couple follow every year on their anniversary. 'Lovedale' is the dullest short story in the medley. Neha Uberoi gets down from a train following a mysterious woman and ends up at the house of Aftab Shivdasani , a painter living alone in a house in the hills. The two share many tender moments but then comes the time for her to leave.

'Sex On The Beach' is a bizarre film by Apoorva Lakhia . Dino Morea finds a book on a beach and what he reads in it comes to life in reality. A sexy girl (Tarina Patel ) walks up to him and puts forth the proposal of the three-letter word. But what turns out knocks the daylights out of Dino.

Directed by Rohit Roy, 'Rice Plate' is one of the best short stories in the film. A devout Hindu woman (Shabana Azmi ), who abhors Muslims, quarrels with a Muslim man in a railway canteen over a rice plate. It is an incident that changes her belief. 'Gubbare'- After a petty squabble with her husband during a busride, the wife sits next to a peculiar stranger (Nana Patekar ) with many balloons.

Sanjay Gupta shows his old penchant for making stylistic crime movies in the short film 'Rise and Fall' starring Sanjay Dutt and Sunil Shetty as two gangster friends divided by power. It is also about two kids who came to the city and got sucked in the whirlpool of crime. It is literally about their rise and fall.

The most basic problem with Dus Kahaniyaan, the omnibus film featuring ten short stories, is that there is no common theme, nothing at all really, that merits these ten stories to be slapped together as one collection. Turning away from the usual trend of screening adults only rated film, New Olympia theatre is to be turned to be a place where a whole family could visit.