Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

Movie: Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

Cast:    Monica Dogra             (Shai)

            Aamir Khan                (Arun)

            Prateik Babbar           (Munna)

            Kriti Malhotra             (Yasmin)

Genre: drama

Synopsis: Arun is a successful artist in Mumbai.  Shai works in a bank in New York but is on a kind of sabbatical for which she going around Mumbai taking photographs of people at work.  Her family is extremely wealthy.  Munna is a “washerboy” by day and a rat killer by night.  He lives in a shack and is extremely poor.

Shai seems to be romantically interested in Arun.  Arun is experiencing something of a life crisis from dealing with a recent divorce and is having creative difficulties.  Munna is the washerboy for both Shai and Arun.  Shai takes a friendly interest in Munna.  She starts using Munna as a guide to show her the different areas of Mumbai for her photographic endeavor.  He is also falling in love with her.

Meantime, Arun has become obsessed with a set of video tapes left in his apartment by a previous tenant.  They are a series of “letters” the newlywed Yasmin made for her brother.  They started with her arrival in Mumbai and chronicle how her life changes.

The movie follows these four and their interconnecting and changing relationships.

My two cents: I really enjoyed this movie.  I really felt for poor Munna.  He is always conscious of the class difference between him and Shai, although Shai seems to be class-blind.  Most of the dialogue is in English, so you do not get overloaded with subtitles.

Bottom line: if you stumble across this movie on video or on TV, give it a try.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

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