Moi Marjaani: Anubhuti Kashyap's love story about a single mom is a must-watch

In Punjabi, the phrase moi marjaani means “kill me with love”. Anubhuti Kashyap’s short film with the same title is a love story, but even though the phrase is part melodrama and part cliche, Kashyap’s Moi Marjaani is no cheesy, ballad-filled tale. In a little more than twenty minutes, Kashyap does what several filmmakers struggle to achieve in full length features: she tells a credible, heartwarming love story that cleverly draws on nuggets of contemporary small town realities with humour and precision.

Moi Marjaani revolves around the life of Mona Chaddha (played by an adorable Kanika Kalra), a young widow and single mother who lives in Patiala. Between running a small cyber cafe for a living and bringing up her eleven-year-old son, Mona also frequents cyber chat rooms. There she meets a young man called Paresh and the two become friends. However, Mona, whose face is constantly swaddled in a dupatta, is in two minds about meeting Paresh.

Watch the film here:

It becomes evident that there’s something not quite right about Mona’s appearance and that’s the reason she’s nervous about meeting Paresh. One day, Paresh arrives at her doorstep without warning. Mona panics. She can’t let Paresh see her and yet she doesn’t want to give up a chance at getting to know him better. A game of hide-and-seek follows that threatens Paresh and Mona’s fragile relationship. The film was made as part of a Google campaign called “India is a visual journey”, launched earlier this year.

The most charming part of Moi Marjaani  is Mona, who stands out from usual filmi heroines because her voice is not one choked with tragedy despite the challenges she faces. Kashyap’s heroine is no superhuman, hardened by tragedy – Mona struggles to start her scooter, tries a cigarette in front of her son and discusses men with her friend with the enthusiasm of a teenager. She tackles the googlies life chucks at her matter-of-factly, whether it’s being a single mother or the difficulties of removing unwanted facial hair.

Explaining Mona’s refreshing nonchalance, Anubhuti said, “These are realities of life and one has to accept it. I personally don’t like the use of too much drama to underline anything - sorrow or happiness.”

She said that while the idea for the film came to her after she met a woman who suffers from the condition that makes Mona wrap up and hide her face.

Spoiler alert: Mona suffers from a condition that has resulted in her growing a beard. When Paresh shows up, she’s about to go for a laser treatment that will remove the unwanted facial hair for good, so she wants Paresh to see her when her chin isn’t adorned by a goatee.

“I met a woman who has a hard visible stubble just under her chin, that she can’t remove through threading or waxing,” said Kashyap. “She needs to shave on a daily basis. And she often has to use makeup to hide it when she steps out socially. This person is now undergoing a laser hair removal treatment. That sparked the idea for the film. In the process of making the film I came across many people with a similar condition. So it’s not really an unusual condition. It’s about opening our eyes and noticing things around. In fact just today, Kanika got a message from this woman who saw and loved the film, as she has been struggling with this issue for the last 10 years,” she says.

Kashyap happens to be the sister of filmmakers, Anurag and Abhinav Kashyap, and she has worked with both of them in the past. “They are bound to have some influence in my work,” said Kashyap of her brothers. “I don’t make a conscious effort to stray away from that influence. But I guess both my brothers’ works are wide apart from each other, so my work naturally falls somewhere in the middle of theirs. Kind of balances both.”

From Moi Marjaani at least, you get a feeling that the one thing Kashyap does have in common with her brothers is a film-making style that is as strongly individualistic as theirs.

Disclaimer: Moi Marjaani has bee produced by Viacom18, a part of the Network18 group which also owns Firstpost.