Chutney: Tisca Arora Kills It In Her New Short Story

Starring: Tisca Arora, Adil Hussain,  Rasika Duggal

Directed by: Jyothi Kapoor Das

Rating: *** ½(3 a half stars)

The enormously talented actress Tisca Arora has turned producer with a short story that left me panting for more. The economy of expression compounded by an austerity of emotional leverage  gives to Chutney, the short story with a long content-drive, a kind of reined-in heft that feature films should emulate.

You don’t need two hours to establish characters or build a momentum in the plot. Just a look,  a gesture or a swipe would suffice provided the emotions underlining the narrative are worked out in detail in the script.In brief, the blueprint  is cut before the  camera gets into action.

Almost all of the very disturbing plot of Chutney unfolds through a conversation between  a housewife from Ghaziabad (Tisca in a very convincing frumpy makeup) and a woman who is a threat to her marriage(played with saucy relish—in  more ways than one—by Rasika Duggal). Tisca Arora plays the wife with compelling but casual candour. She looks different, yes. But that’s just a part, a very small part of what she does with her part.She gives to the wife a kind of don’t-mess-with-my-marriage finality and I-won-let-you-cheat closure that I found disarming and disturbing.If Tisca’s wifely concerns were not so tragic they’d actually be fodder for a black comedy.

Adultery and unfaithful husbands run through the plot scampering across the hazily hectic horizon of the plot redolent with threats of toxification and death. There are two domestic servants  in the plot, one is killed after he discovers his wife cheating on him,the other one spits into the glasses of cold beverage  before serving them to his employee and her guest.Maybe we should just go for self-help.

Chutney is  a small slight and fragile on the top but very assured sturdy and selfcomposedunderneath. It is held together by the smaller performers who flit in and out with an energetic anxiety helping the director to create a sense of imminent doom. But it’s TiscaArora’s central performance that really holds the plot at the hinges and prevents it from coming undone in spite its over-ambitious overtures that threaten to over-run the adulterous drama.

After watching Chutney we are unlikely to dip into a bowl of dhaniya chutney without feeling our stomach churn , or be tempted to cheat on  our spouses without wondering what sort of nemesis awaits at the end of sexual revelry.

This is a a short film that serves up quite a dish  for Tisca Arora to nibble on. She chews up the scenes, and kills it,in unexpected ways.