Gripping and riveting

Two people meet in traumatic circumstances. They approach the challenges from diametrically opposite sides. Out there is the spectrum of human emotions and thoughts all built around spouses on the dying bed. The film in less than an hour and a half crisply tells a saga of life, death and raises poignant questions on love its definition and finally the question that goes begging: whose life is it anyway!!

The film deals with emotions and not so much events. The script does not needlessly get engrossed in too much of detail or for that matter sloppy emotions. It draws a wonderful balance and eschews melodrama like plague.

From the word go the filmmaker as with the script, is all about telling straight and simple story of two persons waiting as their respective spouses are fighting for and with life.

We have a middle class Professor Shiv Natraj (Naseeruddin Shah) who wakes up every morning at 6 am and goes to the hospital where he has a comatose wife Pankaja (Suhasini Mani Ratnam). She has been in coma for over eight months. She in peace and he struggling.

Into the same hospital is the latest patient Rajat (Arjun Mathur) a yuppie who is on a business meet in Kochi where he meets with a road accident. His wife a bright aggressive and a bride of six weeks Tara Kapoor Dehpande (Kalki Koechilin) rushes from Mumbai to the seeming death bed of her loving husband. They meet up in the waiting lounge of the hospital.

The two are as different as chalk is from cheese. While the younger generation is smart and focused “they lack grace and dignity” Shiv tells his comatose wife. The young protagonist on the other hand can never make a statement whit out a s*** or a f***. She is an atheist and refuses to believe that God can or will step in to play the doctor.

Shiv on the other hand has seen it all for eight months day after night. He presents a forensic take on the various steps that the waiting kin face from not me to why me; spiritual bargaining with the Gods, depression and finally acceptance. He would thus take on the role of a Zen Master and begins to cool her nerves. He does not try to win her over or to get her to his side of seeing life. He is willing to put his last buck to save his wife and strongly believes that no one has the right to decide the life of the other even if that be a spouse. She takes a more pragmatic view of the situation. She expects her friends, near or those on FB or followers on Twitter to be around, he treads the path of the loner as they come to terms with their challenges and grief. She is swearing, he communicates in silence and yet a bonding in common grief gets them together. It does not keep them together though.

To take the crisis further we have Dr Nirupam Malhotra (Rajat Kapoor) who refuses surgical intervention in the case of Pankaja though Shiv pleads with him and insists on going ahead with surgery for Rajat when Tara refuses consent. Is this just the call of a mercenary? Who survives? Who wins? Sit through 90 odd minutes of poignant story telling that unfurls effortlessly before you with a touch of human element at all points in time lurking with unsaid grief and stated love.

Watch the film for its simplicity and for text book perfect portrayals by veteran Naseer and the ever dependent Kalki. Not really the performances that will attract the eye balls of the “critics’ who give awards (with due apologies to the Ramesh Sippy and the like!!) but they fill the film with endearing moment and give the character real life credibility.

‘Waiting’ is the kind of film the connoisseur has been waiting for. It is out there. It is for the discerning viewer to now fulfil his job.

L Ravichander