Browse Sections

• Music
• Bollywood
• Arts 
• Film trailers
• Food and drink

'Saas, Bahu Aur Sensex' gets UK release next month

19/ 8/2008

ONE of the most telling and humorous accounts of life in new India, ‘Saas, Bahu Aur Sensex’ releases next month.

A spicy dose of drama, comedy and emotion, the film is set against the backdrop of the money markets  and the masala and kitty parties of modern day Mumbai.

Directed by Canadian born filmmaker, Shona Urvashi, ‘Saas, Bahu and Sensex’ provides a kaleidoscopic view of modern India, a country that, while emerging as one of the world’s leading superpowers, is caught in a juxtaposition between modernity and conservatism; materialism and simple living, progress and traditionalism. 

Woven together with the intricacy and perfection of a sumptuous silk saree, ‘Saas, Bahu Aur Sensex’ unfolds around its central character, ‘Nitya Sen’ (Tanushree Dutta), a young woman who has to abandon her ambition of studying an MBA in the US when she is uprooted by her mother from the family home in Kolkata and relocated to the alien environs of Navi (new) Mumbai, following her parents’ divorce.

Keen to start a new life for her daughter and herself, Nitya’s mother, ‘Vinita’ (Kirron Kher) embraces the high life of kitty parties and coffee mornings with the ladies of the locality, while jumping head first into the volatile world of stock markets and shares with the help of ethical but cranky stock broker, ‘Firoz Sethna’ (Farouque Shaikh). With the relationship with her mother at a frail low point, Nitya seeks solace in the company of ‘Ritesh’ (Anjur Khanna) – a colleague at the call centre she begins working at, who is among a dying breed of kind-hearted, principled inhabitants of the city with a sense of integrity, despite dating ‘Kirti’ (Masumeh Makhija) - a middle class girl with delusions of grandeur and dreams of marrying into money.

Serving coffee at Costa, Kirti has no qualms about spending a month’s salary on a Gucci bag, and harbours the dream of marrying billionaire by birth, ‘Yash Modi’ (Sudanshu Pande), the heir to a large share of the financial call centre, ‘M & M’, where Nitya and Ritesh work. Paradoxically, Kirti’s sister has had an arranged marriage to a traditional husband, and her role in life is now confined to housewife status and keeper of the private space of their home.

‘Saas, Bahu Aur Sensex’ offers an insightful and engaging view into a world caught between polarities, and how its inhabitants cope with the complexities that face them in their everyday lives, told through a story that seamlessly combines humour, pathos and drama.

It is an example of parallel Indian cinema at its very best, revealing multiple layers of the human condition and the ongoing dilemmas we face – a sense of belonging versus individual identity; and comfortable familiarity of the past versus the inescapable future. ‘Saas, Bahu Aur Sensex’ also reflects the changing face of society as the inevitable onslaught of ‘Americanisation’, global consumerism and the mass market is full-heartedly embraced by some, while defiantly resisted by others.

‘Saas, Bahu Aur Sensex’ releases in the UK and internationally on 19 September 2008.