Kho Gaye Hum Kahan: Ananya Panday is the best thing about the Netflix movie, so why does Bollywood insist on miscasting her?

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Siddhant Chaturvedi as Imaad, Adarsh Gourav as Neli, Ananya Panday as Ahana Phadnis in Kho Gaye Hum Kahan. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

The odd scene I mentioned involves each of their characters — Chaturvedi plays the stand-up comic Imaad, Gourav plays a gym trainer named Neil, and Panday plays a marketing professional (?) named Ahana — gathered at a birthday party for Neil’s girlfriend, an influencer named Lala, played by the dependably strong Anya Singh. They’ve been secretly seeing each other for a while, but he hasn’t quite realised that Lala is taking him for a ride. His buddies, however, have clocked her shadiness. The party itself is a sham, an excuse for Lala to source more photographs for Instagram and to continue disguising the emptiness of her own existence.

Ahana’s mild amusement and semi-disbelief at being caught in this candy-coloured nightmare is hilarious. Watching her squirm in embarrassment is enough to remind everybody of how strong Panday can be when she’s in her element. Observe how she looks at her hand after Lala instructs her to catch a flying kiss; it’s almost as if Ahana is reassuring herself that this fever-dream isn’t real. Plus, surrounded by all this artifice, it becomes her responsibility to play the adult. She gives Imaad a stern look when he pokes fun at the hapless Lala, and makes an active effort to restrain her own awkwardness. Neil is her priority in the moment; she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings.

She’s someone who can tap into a reserve personality in social situations, despite being a completely different person when she’s by herself. Unlike Imaad and Neil, who’ve been trapped in cages both metaphorical and tactile, Ahana is has been enslaved by her emotions. Unable to recognise that she’s in a toxic relationship, she begins craving external validation online after being dumped. There’s a particularly insightful moment in which she dresses up only to take pictures for Instagram, and immediately changes back into regular clothes when she’s done.

Ahana is by far the best-written character of the trio — you can, for instance, easily imagine Kho Gaye Hum Kahan being refashioned into a focused study of this young woman, a 20-something struggling to balance the dissatisfaction that she’s feeling in her professional life with the lack of self-worth that she’s grappling with as a person.

Siddhant Chaturvedi as Imaad, Adarsh Gourav as Neli in Kho Gaye Hum Kahan. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

Conflicted between embracing the coming-of-age drama at its core or being a cautionary tale about the perils of social media, Kho Gaye Hum Kahan invariably chooses the latter, even though it’s the least interesting thing about the movie. This is more frustrating than annoying, because we experienced a similar bait-and-switch just last year, with Gehraiyaan — another film, incidentally, where Panday was the stand-out performer. Like that Shakun Batra movie, which committed kamikaze in its final act by drowning in the ocean, Kho Gaye Hum Kahan keeps getting distracted by the social media commentary when it should’ve been dialed in on the characters. It’s one thing for them to be suffering from an identity crisis, but they can go to therapy; the movie can’t.

How often have we heard that the Hindi film industry exists in a bubble, with the power-centre being restricted to a two-kilometre radius? Those who enjoy throwing stones at others often complain that Bollywood filmmakers are out of touch with the pulse of the nation. But the real issue is that even directors who’ve grown up in urban cities don’t really seem to be interested in telling their own stories, barring a few, of course. Where, for instance, is our The Worst Person in the World? How long must we settle for Ayan Mukerji‘s mopey melodramas? And why has only one Indian film this year — Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar — perfectly captured the millennial malaise?

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There’s a reason why Made in Heaven resonates with so many; there’s a reason why last year’s under-seen series Eternally Confused and Eager for Love deserves a bigger audience. Any sensible person who watches Panday in, say, Dream Girl 2 or Liger, will wonder what possessed somebody to put her in those movies. She isn’t a bad actor, it’s just that she’s frequently miscast. There’s a difference; unless, of course, she’s actively chasing these roles. But it’s obvious that the industry doesn’t know what do with her, because the sort of movies that she’d be perfect for aren’t really being made. Panday isn’t someone you force to do a UP accent and item songs. But I can listen to her talk about Izumi reservations all day.