Mani Ratnam’s Navarasa will bring back your belief in storytelling as you watch.
Nine stories, each offering a taste of one of nine enduring emotions is such a great way to bring brilliant actors, directors and cinematographers and, yes, storytellers under an umbrella.
Watch it before the wildfire on social media that cannot see forest for trees, tries to ban a story. Because it is perhaps the best one of the lot. It’s called 'Fear'. The story of a very pretty woman opening the doors to a sweet-talking stranger is already the subject of many scary stories. Yet this one gets under your skin slowly, and insidiously. A man who’s come to seek a lady’s signature on some papers, tells her he will write her Haiku in calligraphy. Your internal alarm bells go off, but he’s having tea, sharing interesting tidbits about tea… The fear that Siddarth manages to slowly instil in the audience’s minds as he begins to unravel the woman’s past is real. The story is so powerful, and the twist is so brilliantly written, it doesn’t matter if they are referring to a particular religious community. All religions have their own versions of ‘casting spells’ and tales of retribution. The story is titled 'Inmai', and it is justified in the title.