Mahanagari

Nabin (Firdaus),a struggling writer,lives with his widowed mother in a village. He earns by giving private tuitions. He has written a novel but does not find any takers. While trying to persuade a Kolkata publisher (Manoj Mitra) to publish his novel,he meets the famous writer Ranjan Mukherjee (Rajatava Dutta). Mukherjee makes Nabin an offer he cannot refuse he will be paid handsomely for ghost-writing for Ranjan. Meanwhile,Nabins girlfriend Chitralekha (Sangeeta Sanyal) runs away to make a career in films so that she can earn enough money to publish Nabins novel. But she gets trapped in a prostitution racket and becomes the keep of Ranjan,who later wins the Sahitya Akademi Award for the novel that Nabin wrote. Nabin walks away,now a mad man.

Veteran actress Sreela Majumdar makes an impressive comeback as the brothel madam who takes kindly to Chitralekha. Rajatava gets the rare opportunity to showcase his low-key acting skills that are wasted in stereotypical celluloid villainous roles. Sangeeta Sanyal does well in her debut performance but she lacks screen presence and needs to improve her dressing sense. Firdaus desperately needs to shed some kilos to look convincing in a poor mans role. Biswajeet Chakraborty as Chitralekhas father is very good. Manoj Mitra,as the mercenary publisher,is mind-blowing. The cinematography captures the pastoral landscape of the village well but becomes mediocre when the story moves to the city. The story is narrated in flashback when Ranjan is being interviewed after getting the literary award for a novel Nabin wrote.

Ghost-writing has rarely been presented in Indian cinema. The credit for the originality of the protagonists tragedy goes to director-writer Kanoj Das who always chooses original storylines for his films but tends to either flood it with sub-plots he cannot carry till the end or his grip over the main plot.

The three stars are for the originality of the plot,the brilliant performances of Manoj Mitra,Rajatava Dutta and Sreela Majumdar and director Kanoj Das who has managed to extract the best performances from an eclectic cast comprising veterans,established actors and complete newcomers.