Desolation
is
a
distant
cousin
to
suburban
seclusion.
And
from
the
isolation
of
the
Modern
Indian
Man
is
born
the
Great
Cosmopolitan
Fable
of
the
man
who
knows
no
succour
from
seclusion.
Karthik
Calling
Karthik
is
an
interesting
if
flawed
fable
of
the
damned.
The
protagonist
is
Karthik(Farhan
Akhtar)-
a
man
so
timid
he
could
merge
into
the
woodwork
of
his
office
if
only
the
decor
was
not
so
much
glass
and
papier-mache.
Karthik
is
bullied
by
his
boss
(Ram
Kapoor,
unusual
and
interesting
bit
of
casting,
that)
sniggered
at
by
his
smarter
(read:
less
sensitive)
colleagues
and
absentmindedly
ignored
by
the
beauty
in
the
beastly
workplace
whom
Karthik
gazes
at
sideways
and
writes
scores
of
unsent
e-mail
to.
She's
the
unattainable
beauty.
He's
King
Kong
without
the
imposing
grandeur
to
protest
against
his
malfunctional
existence.
This
is
the
world
of
Rocket
Singh
without
the
turban
and
the
placidity.
While
Shimit
Amin's
Rocket
Singh
Salesman
Of
The
Year
was
about
an
office-goer
who
craved
for
acceptance,
Karthik
just
wants
to
be
less
unhappy
in
his
space.
It's
not
too
much
to
ask
for.
But
who's
listening?
Except
a
voice
on
the
phone
that
sounds
suspiciously
like
Karthik
to
his
own
ear.
The
buildup
of
Karthik's
dreary
disembodied
world
captures
the
claustrophobia
of
suburban
existence
without
forgetting
to
add
humour
to
the
proceedings.
The
moments
between
Karthik
and
the
gregarious
Shonali
(Deepika)
have
that
touch
of
lively
realism
taken
from
lives
we've
known
lived
and
somewhere
tried
to
reject.
However
the
dialogues
between
the
couple
try
too
hard
to
be
'cool'.
The
relationship
that
Karthik
develops
with
Shonali
is
far
outdistanced
in
intensity
by
the
one
that
he
develops
with
the
Chinese
phone
set.
And
after
a
while
the
'extended
monologues'
(in
a
newly
defined
man-calling-self
avatar)
begins
to
lose
its
credibility.
But
hold
on.
Debutant
director
Vijay
Lalwani
,
self-assured
and
apparently
fully
conscious
of
where
he's
taking
his
story
,gives
us
a
second-half
that
is
gut-wrenching
in
its
portrayal
of
the
individual
as
an
island.
To
escape
the
dictatorial
and
tyrannical
voice
on
the
phone,
Karthik
buys
a
ticket
to
an
unknown
city
which
to
our
visual
delight,
turns
out
to
be
Kochi.
Karthik
rents
a
modest,
near-dingy
room
and
begins
life
anew
as
a
battered
man
seeking
supreme
anonymity
with
no
telephone
lines
to
break
his
self-imposed
deathly
stillness
of
existence.
The
second
movement
of
the
quietly
simmering
plot
comes
to
a
poignant
if
faltering
halt
in
a
city
whose
tranquility
the
cinematographer
Sanu
Verghese
embraces
by
a
rejection
of
the
urban
chaos.
However
the
revelation
on
Karthik's
psychological
condition
surprises
no
one
except
Karthik
himself,
and
least
of
his
sexy
shrink
Shefali
Shah.
Karthik
Calling
Karthik
is
a
gripping
jigsaw
piecing
together
a
mind
that
plays
games
with
itself.
The
winner
is
destiny.
The
pace
is
consciously
sluggish
suggesting
the
deep-rooted
association
of
a
vigour-less
existence
with
the
quality
of
life
that
the
cities
offer
you
in
exchange
for
a
comfortable
flat
in
a
techno-suffused
surrounding.
Farhan
Akhtar,
the
life
and
breath
of
the
proceedings,
epitomizes
urban
anonymity
in
his
body
language
speech
and
hesitant
attempts
to
reach
out
to
a
world
that
has
no
patience
with
the
over-sensitive.
Farhan's
is
indeed
a
super-confident
performance
as
a
man
lacking
self-confidence.
The
film
itself
doesn't
lag
behind
in
self-assurance.
But
the
absence
of
what
one
may
call
an
energetic
exterior
could
well
be
mistaken
by
some
viewers
as
an
ingrained
inertia,
a
malaise
that
the
film's
protagonist
suffers
from.
Do
not
mistake
the
man
for
the
plot.
Story first published: Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 10:07 [IST]