There are some movies that define your life. Define almost every single emotion you could possibly feel. The Sound of Music dominated my childhood and adolescence. For years, I would return home from those beastly examinations and religiously consume every frame of the film. As a Bengali girl forced to learn Rabindra Sangeet, the prospect of being in an Austrian family who could sing in tune all the time was all I ever wanted. Once the film was over, I would re-enact all the scenes in my head. As a precocious ten-year-old, I thought this was the only drug that I would ever be addicted to.

Now that I am a ‘grown up,’ my cine-buff father is incredibly saddened to find that I spend my weekends watching B-grade Hindi films instead of Fellini or Kurosawa or Ray. I explain to him that on Friday nights, I’m tired of waging my daily war with the world and have hung my gloves. I need a release from the chaos that is my life, and Jaanasheen, Sheesha, Jaani Dushman help me do so. It’s called therapy, Papa, I reason with him only to hear the sigh of disappointment reverberating through the phone line.

I hang up and choose my favourite film of the lot. Jaani Dushman — or JD — has been my friend through every weird or ugly situation that I have experienced since I moved to Delhi five years ago. This movie has everybody in it and I’ve never enjoyed watching so many people act so seriously and so badly. Here’s the gist or something close to it: since there are so many heroes, the main actor is a villain who is an icchadhari nag. For three hours, he continues to avenge the rape and murder of his lover (who is reincarnated every two minutes) and proceeds to kill all the heroes in the film. During their last minutes on earth, the heroes are singing and dancing in exotic locales till the villain metamorphoses from a car to a Terminator-figure and kills them. I’m also glad to inform you that Sonu Nigam made his acting debut with this film. It gladdens my heart to see him struggle to make his presence felt in a multi-star blockbuster.

... contd.