Based upon my brief and entirely unscientific survey of the internet, it’s very difficult to review Ahista Ahista
(2006) without giving away, or at least strongly hinting at, the
ending. That’s entirely understandable; the storyline is an old
Bollywood standby, and the movie is interesting not because of what
happens, but how the characters react.
Ankush (Abhay Deol) is a professional wedding guest. He spends each day outside the registry office, where for a mere 200 rupees, he offers to serve as a witness for the wedding, arrange the rest of the required four if needed, and generally use his contacts in the building to smooth the process for them. It’s not the most stable or socially acceptable job in the world, but Ankush is very good at it, and seems to genuinely enjoy helping people.
At the registry office, Ankush meets Megha (Soha Ali Khan), who is waiting for Dheeraj (Shayan Munshi). As night falls, he still hasn’t shown up. Megha is alone in Delhi, with no money, and she’s eloped, so she can’t return home. Ankush is a stranger, but he’s the only person in Delhi who’s even spoken to her, so he is the only person she can turn to for help. Fortunately, he rises to the occasion.
Ankush lives in a men’s hostel, so he can’t take her home, and every attempt to find a place for Megha to stay for the night goes wrong. After a few days, it’s clear that Dheeraj isn’t coming, and that they’re going to need a long term solution. He arranges a job at a nursing home for Megha, borrows money to pay the deposit for her housing, then takes a job as a door to door banker in order to pay off the loan.
And for a while, everything is going really, really well. Ankush and Megha become very close, and their relationship slowly develops into a low key romance. Ankush is offered a promotion at the bank, so he’s now making enough money to start talking to Megha about marriage. And that’s when Dheeraj shows up again.
Now, if you’ve watched very much Bollywood at all, you’ve seen this movie before. (The last time I saw it, it was called Sawariya.) This time, however, Ankush has also seen the movie before. He knows what his part is, and he discovers that he’s quite capable of lying in order to change the ending.
The real difference between Ahista Ahista and other Bollywood movies with the same general plotline is that everything is subdued and low-key. Nobody falls in love at first sight. While everyone recognizes that Ankush has done a remarkable thing, no one ever refers to him as an angel in human form, or anything of the sort. Dheeraj dramatically condemns Ankush’s deception, but Megha immediately understands why he did it. And at the end, during the inevitable scene of self sacrifice, Ankush is sensible enough to realize that it really isn’t the end of the world, and that he is genuinely better off for having known Megha. She didn’t just make him a better man, she made him a man with a better job.
Ankush (Abhay Deol) is a professional wedding guest. He spends each day outside the registry office, where for a mere 200 rupees, he offers to serve as a witness for the wedding, arrange the rest of the required four if needed, and generally use his contacts in the building to smooth the process for them. It’s not the most stable or socially acceptable job in the world, but Ankush is very good at it, and seems to genuinely enjoy helping people.
At the registry office, Ankush meets Megha (Soha Ali Khan), who is waiting for Dheeraj (Shayan Munshi). As night falls, he still hasn’t shown up. Megha is alone in Delhi, with no money, and she’s eloped, so she can’t return home. Ankush is a stranger, but he’s the only person in Delhi who’s even spoken to her, so he is the only person she can turn to for help. Fortunately, he rises to the occasion.
Ankush lives in a men’s hostel, so he can’t take her home, and every attempt to find a place for Megha to stay for the night goes wrong. After a few days, it’s clear that Dheeraj isn’t coming, and that they’re going to need a long term solution. He arranges a job at a nursing home for Megha, borrows money to pay the deposit for her housing, then takes a job as a door to door banker in order to pay off the loan.
And for a while, everything is going really, really well. Ankush and Megha become very close, and their relationship slowly develops into a low key romance. Ankush is offered a promotion at the bank, so he’s now making enough money to start talking to Megha about marriage. And that’s when Dheeraj shows up again.
Now, if you’ve watched very much Bollywood at all, you’ve seen this movie before. (The last time I saw it, it was called Sawariya.) This time, however, Ankush has also seen the movie before. He knows what his part is, and he discovers that he’s quite capable of lying in order to change the ending.
The real difference between Ahista Ahista and other Bollywood movies with the same general plotline is that everything is subdued and low-key. Nobody falls in love at first sight. While everyone recognizes that Ankush has done a remarkable thing, no one ever refers to him as an angel in human form, or anything of the sort. Dheeraj dramatically condemns Ankush’s deception, but Megha immediately understands why he did it. And at the end, during the inevitable scene of self sacrifice, Ankush is sensible enough to realize that it really isn’t the end of the world, and that he is genuinely better off for having known Megha. She didn’t just make him a better man, she made him a man with a better job.
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