Qarib Qarib Singlle is a women’s lib film but not in the traditional sense of the phrase. Jaya (Parvathy) is an independent mid-30s widow who works nine-to-nine Monday to Saturday — because nine-to-five is too early for her to go back home — and earmarks her Sundays for babysitting her friend’s children. Whenever alone, she pesters her younger brother on Skype, binge-watches television and kills flies with an electric flyswatter.

Her lifestyle has seeped into her wardrobe, which is full of freshly ironed, pastel coloured, baggy outfits. Although she doesn’t say this —and she’s far from desperate — she misses a man in her life.

In an early scene when the film is still establishing who Jaya is, she spots a young woman buying contraceptives from a medical store at night. She shoots the woman, and her man, a look — a mix of slight shock and awe, as if she is jealous of their sexual freedom (the couple, to be noted, didn’t seem like the newly-wed type which I suppose would upset Jaya more). Naturally, her friends are concerned. One of them even insinuates that she may become a virgin again, if she doesn’t see some “action” soon.

So Jaya, out of the blue, does what any desperate, single woman without eligible male options does: she creates an account on a dating website. She even nods to us, the audience, before doing so, as if she’s asking our permission. She wants to be set free from her independence — to be shackled in the confines of a relationship. She wants to be liberated from her free-yet-mundane life.

Qarib Qarib Singlle marks a return after nine years for director Tanuja Chandra. The hiatus seems to have done her good

Like I said earlier, this is a different perspective on women’s lib. What if you have too much freedom, and still had nothing to do? Yogi (Irrfan Khan) is Jaya’s salvation — a dynamic, colourful, mature man, who makes his entry only after Jaya’s plight is grounded into the story. The lateness of Irrfan’s introduction into the film is a very astute narrative choice from co-writer/director Tanuja Chandra. Qarib Qarib is Chandra’s return to commercial cinema after a nine-year hiatus. I believe she needed this time out to better understand herself as a filmmaker.

Any casual Bollywood viewer would know Chandra’s career. She started as a writer with Mahesh Bhatt on Tamanna and Zakhm (perhaps one of the best films Bhatt has directed), was one of the writers of the Yash Chopra-directed Dil To Paagal Hai, and turned director in 1998 with Dushman — a remake of Eye for an Eye, where Kajol plays one of two twins who goes after her sister’s killer. Chandra followed up with Sangharsh (a rip-off of Silence of the Lambs, with Akshay stepping in for Anthony Hopkins), Ye Zindagi Ka Safar and the overly-dramatic musical Sur, after which I gave up on her.

Chandra’s films were derivative at those points, struggling to wrest free from the void between commercial and arthouse cinema. Dabbling across genres wasn’t helping and Bollywood at that time wasn’t as mature at handling tricky subjects.

Undue commercialisation with sappy romantic sub-plots and songs limited a director’s creative options. In a sense, both Chandra and Bollywood needed to grow up.

With Qarib Qarib (and her gap), the experience is refreshingly drama-free. Despite some slight snags in the film’s last half, one finds many silent aspects worthy of applause. For instance, the screenplay (by Chandra and Ghazal Dhaliwal) refrains from fleshing out Yogi’s back-story and doesn’t plod over Jaya’s. We — and they themselves — divulge just enough about each other to resonate with the viewers.

Irrfan Khan, who seems to be having a ball in the film, is deliberately kept on the sidelines, even though he is in 80 percent of the film’s frames. For the bulk of the story, he plays the catalyst that unburdens Jaya from her own inhibitions. A worthy ‘supporting’ character, even though he is the film’s lead.

The last frame, which happens on-board an Aerial Tram above Gangtok in Sikkim, is an accurate representation of the story’s basic idea and tone. One may think that the ending, with the two high above everyone else, is Bollywood cliché — it is not. There are no confessions of undying love here. Just a man and a woman, sharing a small, intimate moment that reflects the film’s title.

Published in Dawn, ICON, November 19th, 2017