The film had its world premiere at the New York Indian Film Festival. On the surface, it’s a genteel Agatha Christie-type murder mystery set in a small town. But dig deeper, and it says a lot about who we really are. The rest of this review may contain spoilers.
In Kaisi Ye Paheli, Sadhana Singh plays a mother who’s known simply as Ma. She lives with her son Uttam (Sukant Goel) in Kalimpong. In their first scene together, Ma prays to the wall-photo of her dead husband, and when she asks Uttam to participate, he recoils. One, he blames her for his father’s death. Two, he does not want her in his life. He does not want her forced attempts at conversations about Modi and movies and cricket. But what else is a lonely woman to do, given that Uttam does not want to talk about his work? Ma reads a lot of crime fiction and fancies herself an amateur detective, and this annoys Uttam even more. He snaps at her that “Feluda-type stories” do not exist in real life. But they do, and the sleepy town soon sees a murder. The cause? A poisoned pedha.
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