Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan

Saeed Akhtar Mirza's 'Arvind Desai Ki Ajab Dastan'(The strange Fate of Arvind Desai) is an intense journey through the 1970's Mumbai. The movie begins with a portrayal of the silk/handicraft textile workers of a village and moves onto the life of Arvind Desai, an young handicrafts businessman, born with a silver spoon.

Mr.Desai struggles at both home as well as at business, and spends most of his time in wandering around the city in his posh car. These frequent escapades from the clutches of an authoritarian father as well as an equally uninspiring business forces him to seek solace from two women: one his lover and another a prostitute.He also often visits his intellectual friend Rajan, a teacher who believes in Marxist ideology. Even though he fails to show any interest in their highly loaded discourses, he sits patiently and listens to their long doctrines on 'class' and'society'.

This existential crisis of Arvind Desai is the soul of the film. Saeed Akhtar Mirza, like his other films 'Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hain?(Why does Albert Pinto get angry?)' and Mohan Joshi Haazir ho! (Mohan Joshi is present at the court!), has titled this film too in a similar way. The very title itself catches our attention and makes us curious enough to find out about the strange fate of Desai.

Considered one of the best works of Idian Parallel Cinema, it showcases a rich array of actors like Om Puri, Rohini Hattangadi, Sreeram Lagoo and Satish Shah. David Dhawan, who plays the young title character is not a familiar face to me, but is so convincing in his role.He acts like a more mellowed actor.

Virendra Saini's cinematography is yet another promising feature of the film.It bagged a filmfare critics award in 79 for the best director too..

7 stars..Grab a copy of the film as soon as you can!!