In a new world where callousness rules and sensitivity is passé Kiran Rao decides to wash laundry in an attempt to recap the lustre of humanism. The patina accumulated over years of insensitivity needs some real rinsing with a detergent no better than human ethos and values. That’s nothing other than a recognition of the human soul and an insight to palpate a fellow human being’s angst.
A clutch of videotapes expose Arun (Amir Khan) to a hapless woman whose joys and tribulations take him on a vicarious journey of humanness. A merciless metropolis throws the lives of many such people awry, sometimes to the point of no return.
Yasmin’s (Kriti Malhotra) story holds no value in a fast paced city. She’s just one among the dhobis, dabbawallahs and the like with no value and identity. But for a solitary humanist like Arun, who has developed a stillness in the chaos around him, Yasmin is important. Only through him she becomes an individual in flesh and blood, with hopes, aspirations and dreams of her own. Until then she’s just another woman who’s constantly ignored, snubbed, abused and treated like a ragdoll. Arun’s attempts to redeem her in canvas remain an 'abstract' when he shockingly discovers the intensity with which mundane lives are trampled by (un)civilized boots.
We have trained ourselves to see a make belief India sans poverty, subjugation and filth. The zillion plebeian that make our luxury possible stay out of focus. Like the dhobi (Prateik Babbar) of the 'ghat' they have reconciled to the fact that their identity is destined to be in the murky margins of the society. The sunglasses of convinience aid this myopic vision in overseeing the obvious and to wallow in minutiae. It’ll not be far that we replace those glasses with blinds that’ll forever shut out the light of reality and bless us with the luxury of darkness. But a glimmer of hope like Kiran Rao will be there to poke holes to these blinds allowing real life and real people to seep in and disturb our blasé world!
