Metro presents mayhem in big cities

Life in a metro is like a boiling pot, where lack of time, the mad race for money and success, drying emotional quotient, entangled relationships lead to emotional turmoil and heartburn. Anurag Basu's "Life In A... Metro", releasing Friday, gives us a picture of all this.

The narrative revolves around various characters from all walks of life and when they come face to face the experience changes their lives forever.

Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) is a bored housewife and her husband Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon) is too busy to spend time with her. Dejected and neglected, Shikha is in pursuit of emotional fulfilment, which she gets from Aakash (Shiny Ahuja). At the same time, Ranjeet too cheats on her.

Shikha's sister Shruti (Konkana Sen Sharma) works with Radio Mirchi. She lives in the same city and shares her room with Neha (Kangana Ranaut). Shruti's problem is that she is in love with her colleague but he is gay.

Then there's Debu (Irrfan Khan), a 30-year-old virgin who tries to find love through dating websites. As luck would have it, Debu finds Shruti through a matrimonial site. Though Debu is attraced to Shruti, she is not so impressed by him.

Rahul (Sharman Joshi), a call centre executive, is desperately trying to make his way in the business world. He is attracted to his senior Neha, who has no qualms about taking shortcuts to success - she makes it big in a very short span by sleeping with her boss Ranjeet.

The film also has Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali who play a couple living separately for 40 years - till one fine day they realise they love each other truly.

The film touches upon sensitive issues and revolves around the lives of people who live in high-rise buildings. It's an interesting film.

In the 1970s, veteran filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Basu Chatterjee and Bhimsain tackled issues concerning big city life in their films "Mahanagar", "Piya Ka Ghar" and "Gharonda" respectively.

One hopes Anurag Basu's reel drama takes him into the league of such stalwarts.

http://www.santabanta.com/cinema.asp?pid=14727