Lamhaa

During the showcasing of Lamhaa at the recently held I.I.F.A. in Sri Lanka, I was compelled to ask director Rahul Dholakia about the catch line of the film: 'The untold story of Kashmir'. Obviously, I was curious. What was Dholakia going to narrate that we, the viewers, hadn't witnessed in films earlier or read in newspapers or watched on news channels? Dholakia gave a convincing response, justifying the catch line, but obviously not revealing much about the film.

As Lamhaa unfolds, you realize that Dholakia may've borrowed a few incidents from life, but as it moves forward, it comes across as a typical Bollywood enterprise that harps on being real, but ends up being a masala film that we have witnessed over and over again. The catch line, in my individualistic opinion, is quite misleading.

Dholakia seems to have researched extensively on the issue and Lamhaa does boast of some razor-sharp moments, but the viewer is keen to have an insider's viewpoint on Kashmir, something that we haven't read/seen (on news channels/films) earlier, which Lamhaa just doesn't provide.