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OTTSumukhi is wonderful as the wounded but increasingly deranged Pushpavalli, still creeping around the one man she can’t get over. Saraswati DatarThe most heartbreaking words I have heard recently on any medium are said between Nikhil (Manish Anand) and Pushpavalli (Sumukhi Suresh) at a crucial juncture in Season 2 of Pushpavalli now streaming on Amazon Prime. Nikhil asks Pushpavalli why she didn’t just tell him how she felt instead of stalking him for so long. “Because you look like you, and I look like me” she says, voicing the reality of women around the world who have been told for years to aspire for love with reference to their looks. Season 1 of the show introduced us to Pushpavalli, or Lee as Nikhil calls her. She is smart, witty and ‘fun’, but in a world of photoshopped perfection, Pushpavalli is the opposite of what is projected as beauty. Obviously unfamiliar to kindness and attention,...

SeriesThe show pushes the envelope in terms of characterisation, exploring the many shades of grey in each personAnjana ShekarScreenshot - Amazon Prime VideoBoy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl does not feel the same way. Boy stalks girl, tries to woo her. Girl is still not interested. Boy kills girl. Now, if you thought that it escalated quickly, you haven't been paying attention to the news around you. Scorned lovers are not the only ones plotting acts of revenge anymore. Men who weren’t even a part of the picture, men who have been living lives inside their head, convinced the girl loves them, are also the ones who murder for ‘love’. Taking a 180-degree turn from this usual plot is Sumukhi Suresh’s Pushpavalli, a web series that premiered on Amazon Prime Video on December 15, 2017. The eight-episode series shows Pushpavalli as a seemingly normal girl-next-door who, slowly but surely, takes on darker tones – quickly becoming president of stalker-town. This unusual plot line is the result of Sumukhi questioning the unrealistic characterisation of women on screen. “I am tired of people expecting a female character to only be good. There are shades of grey as well and clearly, Pushpavalli here is the anti-hero. You empathise with her, but you never agree with her.” Decades of Indian cinema showed us that stalking as a means to woo the opposite sex is ‘normal’. Up until a few years ago, people never understood, or discussed, the gross negligence on the storyteller’s part for promoting such actions on screen. At this juncture, Pushpavalli is bold enough to venture into this line of thought and initiate an important dialogue. When does a seemingly normal relationship become an obsession? Are stalkers only men? Why does stalking hit the headlines only when it results in a violent crime? And do we take women stalkers seriously enough? ‘Looking up someone on social media’ (it’s stalking, guys, let’s call a spade a spade here) has become normalised in the digital world we live in. For those of us who have done that, we don’t have to take this series – that’s based on ‘true-ish events’– with a pinch of salt. This should be our wake-up call. Early on in the series, we get a whiff of Pushpavalli’s obsession with Nikhil, played by Manish Anand, whom she had met at a food expo in Bhopal. We also get to know that her intent to move to Bengaluru from Bhopal is to get closer to Nikhil (a lot like the American TV series, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but the similarities stop here). The series has a nonlinear storyline that jumps from the present to the past, where we get most of the backstory from. In retrospect, we also consider the possibility that if Nihkil lead her on during their short-lived encounter in Bhopal, does that justify Pushpavalli's obsession with him? The best part about the series is that with the anti-hero as the lead, we come to understand the shades of grey in every character. Pushpavalli’s well-meaning, conservative mother plays a part in making her daughter feel inadequate. Her roommates, who are always together and even talk at the same time, have a penchant for drama that stops at nothing. “She also turned out to be boring. Wish we could get a murderer like last year,” they say in one scene, referring to Pushpavalli. The dark comedy in the show also tries to dispel the aura of awkwardness that surrounds periods. In one scene, single mother Swati (Preetika Chawla) questions quick-tempered Pankaj’s (Naveen Richard) insensitive explanation of a period pad to a child. This rings a bell with so many of us who have dodged uneasy questions coming from children. The series effortlessly jumps from cringe-comedy to hard-hitting truth that culminates in the end with Pushpavalli’s breakdown. You feel sorry for her but you also don’t expect her to turn over a new leaf either. The success of the series lies in how it steers the focus away from the idea of what’s right and wrong. Instead, we look at its characters, their flaws and what makes them relatable. The series in itself is not without glitches. We've got loud characters who are always on the cusp of breakdowns and Pankaj's overuse of swear words becomes excessive after a point. Our conditioning as viewers has long demanded that in a story, the bad character repents, quarrels come to an end and problems are resolved. As an audience, we need closure - the ‘happily ever after’. “That is just lazy writing. Nobody turns over a new leaf just after one confrontation,” says Sumukhi. Which is true. Although, as a community, we’ve got a long way to go when it comes to identifying and fixing such behaviours, Sumukhi’s Pushpavalli creates the right kind of dialogue just in time for us to maybe start acting on it.

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Actor Vivek Oberoi was at Fame to promote his movie Prince . The movie Prince released last friday. This was touted as Vivek's comeback vehicle into bollywood.

The movie also stars Aruna Sheilds, Nandana Sen, Neeru Singh, Sanjay Kapoor, Isaiah, Rajesh Khattar, Dilip Tahil, Mayur Puri, Manish Anand & Mohit Chauhan and has been directed by Kookie V Gulati

Cute pics with the baby!!

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Movie: Prince; Star cast: Vivek Oberoi, Aruna Sheilds, Isaiah, Neeru Singh, Nandana Sen, Sanjay Kapoor, Dilip Tahil, Rajesh Khattar, Manish Anand, Mayur Puri and Mohit Chauhan; Director: Kookie V Gaulti; Rating: 2 out of 5.

When it comes to filching ideas from Hollywood action flicks, director Kookie V Gulati shows a remarkable knack. From The Bourne Identity to Matrix via Mission Impossible, the man spares no adrenaline pumping blockbuster in his zeal to stitch together a sleek, stylish film with a heavy dose of high-octane stunts,.

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Actor Vivek oberoi at the special screening of the movie Prince.

The movie is touted as Vivek's comeback vehicle into bollywood.

The movie also stars Aruna Sheilds, Nandana Sen, Neeru Singh, Sanjay Kapoor, Isaiah, Rajesh Khattar, Dilip Tahil, Mayur Puri, Manish Anand & Mohit Chauhan and has been directed by Kookie V Gulati

Hope this film gets a good opinion. Vivek is trying really hard to recover his position in the film industry. my wishes to him and to the film ( love the songs :P)

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STARRINGVivek Oberoi, Nandana Sen, Aruna Shields, Niroo Singh, Isaiah, Sanjay Kapoor, Dalip Tahil, Manish Anand, Mayur Puri, Rajesh Khattar, Mohit Chauhan and others.DIRECTIONKookie GulatiSTORYThe plot of the flick revolves around the character of Prince (Vivek Oberoi), who is a thief by profession. However, Prince is no ordinary thief. In fact, he is one of the shrewdest ever thief on the planet and has committed the biggest heist ever.But before he could do something to come out of such a big crime, he was shot and had a bullet wound when woke up next morning.Unfortunately, Prince has lost his memory with the wound and can not remember even his name. However, gradually, he comes to know that his earlier name was Prince and he was working with Narang.