Actors: Victor Banerjee, Roopa Ganguly, Atul Kulkarni, Naved Aslam,

Director : Anjan Dutta

A sorrowing tea-planter writes love letters to his no-longer-present-wife, and his no- longer-peaceful-town. A failed actress, along with her young son, shows up to tax her former husband of past sins and find forgiveness. A squabbling couple finds each other. A separatist looks for freedom. And all of them criss-cross Darjeeling’s main street, going their way.

The fact that it’s set in Darjeeling immediately gives the film freshness : Darj, as its residents like to call it, has a feel all its own. You wish, though, that the characters had been given more room for manoeuver: the just-married wife keeps harping, without a break, on the lack of responsibility that her husband ( Naved) shows. The bitter shop-soiled actress ( Roopa) who’s had so many affairs she doesn’t know who her son belongs to, deserved more of a back story. So does the gun-toting separatist ( Atul ), who gets involved in a kidnapping sub-plot which peters out.

What lifts the film is its music. Neel, director Anjan Dutt’s son, layers `Chowrasta’ with a great soundtrack, and a superb song, set in a pub, which the young husband sings for his wife.