By Rohini Mohan 

I suppose the concept is different. It’s like reading a book of short stories as opposed to a full length novel. Dus Kahaaniyaan is 10 different short films which have no connection to each other, each a little self contained feature on its own with its own cast of actors and directors. 

The features have names like Pooranmashi, Gubbare, Rice Plate, Sex on the Beach, Zahir, Strangers in the Night etc, some are predictable, some are bizarre, some are touching. Not all the cast is recognizable, though there are some big names interspersed with the little known. There’s one starring Shabana & Naseer which of course was the slickest. Shabana as a Tam lady is quite brilliant and Naseer was par excellence.  Sanjay Dutt and Suneil Shetty feature in the Bombay underworld short film which was also well made. Dino Morea (who btw is quite gorgeous) stars is the really weird one about death and seduction which was unexpectedly disturbing. Amrita Singh as the mom of a marriageable daughter was good, I guess but I could not get over the fact that she was once married to Saif who has only just reached his prime as the uncrowned metrosexual king.

I would not say the movie always stayed with me or I always stayed with the movie. I had trouble concentrating in parts especially in the themes that did not interest me. I would never voluntarily go watch a horror movie or a ghost story, nor would I drag myself out to see a gangster film. What this movie forced the audience to do was to sit through 10 plots that were so vastly different that they could not help but touch on all kinds of topics which may make some uncomfortable. I know I wanted to leave when Sex on the Beach was going on.

But, there is nothing wrong in experimenting. It’s good for us to stretch our imagination a little bit and watch something that is not the standard fare we are used to. I remember I enjoyed watching the Hugh Grant movie ‘Love Actually’ which also way was several different stories packaged together, only that it was much more intricately and intelligently woven together. Dus Kahaaniyan is not a copy of Love actually (we already copied that concept in Salaame-e-ishq) it is not an idea I have ever seen before. From the novelty aspect it’s worth a watch, but on DVD.