A dozen filters, the slimming feature and the skin brightening button done and you are ready to post your picture on your social media handles. The one big/small problem (depending on how you look at it) — the person in the photo looks nothing like you. Attempting to thirst-trap an ex to make him regret (or at least you hope he does) what you believe he has lost out on. Battling a million issues in life but making sure your social media life looks hunky-dory. Looking for validation through likes, shares and comments on social media. Jumping from one dating app to the next and one vacuous first date to the next. Giving your friend an earful for taking a bite of her food at a restaurant before you have had a chance to photograph it. Having a bad time on vacation but making sure your photos are picture-perfect. Most of us today are guilty of living a life that is customised for social media. A world that has no place for anything ugly, vulnerable or real.
Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, with its title borrowed from the popular Prateek Kuhad song, aptly illustrates how we have lost a large part of ourselves to the digital age and touches upon all that's been described above. Through the lives of three 20-somethings living in Mumbai, debutant director Arjun Varain Singh attempts to show how we are all trying to control our lives on social media, but are in reality, completely consumed by it, one hashtag at a time.
Hostel pals Imaad (Siddhant Chaturvedi), Ahana (Ananya Panday) and Neil (Adarsh Gourav) have carried their friendship into their adult lives. Imaad and Ahana even bunk together in Imaad's apartment. Imaad is a stand-up comic, a commitment-phobe and an obsessive Tinder user. Growing up without a mother and an abusive episode in his childhood has scarred Imaad for life and he uses his time on stage — sometimes with jokes that are directed at his friends and hit below the belt all too often — to shield himself from the world.
Ahana, an MBA with a job that she isn't too happy with, has just been dumped by her longtime boyfriend and can't get over it. Neil is a trainer in a gym who feels stuck in his life and career. The fact that he's dating an influencer who doesn't care about him adds to his frustration.
In looking at the ups and downs (more downs than ups) in the daily lives of these three friends — who one day decide to do business together, adding more complications to their equation — Kho Gaye Hum Kahan adopts a fly-in-the-wall approach to build a largely relatable story of what affects young people today. Apart from the fancy, sprawling apartment that Imaad and Ahana live in (is this Mumbai?!), much of what the film wants to say finds resonance. And one doesn't need to be a 20-year-old for that.
Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, to be honest, doesn't have a solid plot as such. The film, jointly written by the director and co-producers Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti and streaming on Netflix, comprises vignettes reflecting life and thankfully, doesn't look for a specific denouement. But in doing so, it meanders. By emphasising more on the relatability factor, the film doesn't end up as something that we haven't seen, heard or even experienced before.
Trolling, the disconnect one feels in the real world even when being connected virtually, hiding behind one's digital identity in the fear that no one should know the real you... all of this is the bedrock of Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, which scores with the tenderness with which it handles relationships — despite a Dil Chahta Hai-styled fallout — but it is also a trifle naive in how it resolves issues and addresses deep-rooted complexities. For example, Imaad using the stage to talk about his abuse for the first time outside his psychiatrist's chamber seems too contrived and convenient and doesn't sit well with the rest of the film.
The performances, however, are laudable. Adarsh Gourav, with already a BAFTA nomination to his name for his incredible turn in The White Tiger, handles a complex role well and so does Siddhant Chaturvedi, though Imaad's constant confusion does grate at times. Ananya Panday is getting to grow on me as an actor and she brings in the same vulnerability that she did to her part in Gehraiyaan. Another winner is the music, with a bunch of musicians, led by Ankur Tewari, doing a neat job. I wanna see you dance, in Saba Azad's zingy voice, is a party anthem already.
Priyanka Roy
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