Start the week with a film: ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ is an ode to personal and political passions

Sudhir Mishra’s feature debut Yeh Woh Manzil Toh Nahin (1987) is about three men who are long-time friends and who look back on how far they – and their country – have come since their early days of idealism. Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2005) also revolves around three characters – two men and the woman they both love – and the times they live in.

Mishra’s most cherished work explores the tumultuous late 1960s and 1970s. Vikram (Shiney Ahuja) is openly smitten with his college mate Geeta (Chitrangda Singh), but she is in love with the fiery Naxalite Siddharth (Kay Kay Menon).

Vikram becomes a fixer for the corrupt Congress politician Sadiq (Aditya Bhattacharya), pining for Geeta all the while. As the Emergency approaches, Vikram has several occasions to meet Geeta and Siddharth again.

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi was completed in 2003 but was released only on April 15, 2005. The delay has means that the film is marking its twentieth anniversary half a century since the Emergency. It’s entirely apt, given the movie’s themes.

The screenplay by Mishra, Shiv Subramanium and Ruchi Narain begins in 1969 before winding its way to 1975. The compact with Gandhian socialism and Nehruvian optimism has been severely eroded. Revolutionary fervour is ripping through colleges and villages. Corruption...

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