Banaras - A Mystic Love Story

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Taran Adarsh, Courtesy India FM

Pankuj Parashar has attempted diverse films in his career: Peechha Karo, Jalwa, Chaalbaaz, Rajkumar, Himalay Putra, Tumko Na Bhool Paayenge and Inteqam. For the first time in his career, the efficient storyteller tackles a film that combines a love story with spiritualism: Banaras - A Mystic Love Story.

Frankly, you ought to watch Banaras - A Mystic Love Story with an open mind. It's not one of those masala films that Hindi cinema is generally associated with. The film tackles the caste system [still prevalent in certain pockets of the country] and also looks at life not from scientific, but spiritual point of view. Look for answers within you, is the message the film tries to convey.

However, if the unadulterated, pure concept is its USP, it's also a downer since the theme and the execution of the subject are not the type that would appeal to those who tilt towards entertainment-driven stuff.

Artistic to the core and sensitively treated, Banaras - A Mystic Love Story caters to a niche audience. However, that's no consolation when you look at the efforts [and money] spent at the end of the day.

Shwetambari aka Shweta [Urmila Matondkar], the bright young daughter of rich Brahmin parents [Dimple Kapadia and Raj Babbar], studies science at the local university in Banaras. Sohan [Ashmit Patel], called Soham by Babaji [Naseeruddin Shah], is a low caste mystic who teaches music at the University. When the two fall in love, hell breaks loose

At first, Shweta's parents disapprove of the match, but when truth dawns upon them that Soham is a Hindu, they decide to get the lovers engaged. Even the marriage date is fixed, but on the day of marriage news filters in that Soham has been murdered. A shattered Shweta decides to abandon the very city she loves the most. In despair, she turns inwards to look for answers.

Seventeen years later, Shweta, now a world teacher in philosophy and religion, is confronted with a final choice -- whether to return to Banaras to meet her dying father or to continue to deny all attachments. When she returns to Banaras, the sleeping demons and the dark secrets lying underneath erupt like a dormant volcano.

Delicately treated Banaras - A Mystic Love Story may come across as a love story on the surface, but the moment the titles end and layer after layer is peeled, you realize that there's more to the film than the love story of an upper caste girl and a lower caste boy.