Watch it for Ghaywan and Konkona

Ajeeb Daastaans, from Karan Johar’s little OTT production baby, Dharmatic Entertainment, tells four stories of people impaled in a life they don’t want but can’t get out of because of their caste, class, family compulsions or lack of choices. They are all similarly unhappy, seething and searching for something better.

As is the track-record of all Bollywood anthologies, Ajeeb Daastaans diligently follows the template. It has four twisted stories of which two are middling, one is good and one truly fabulous.

All the four films by four different directors are bristling with atmosphere and are marked by powerful performances by actors who are cast in compelling roles and placed in a dramatic situation that draws us in immediately. But three of the four are filmy, drawing a lot from their Bollywood predecessors, and only one seems to be informed by life. They are nice, but feel like stories we have seen or heard before. All except Geeli Pucchi.

Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, Geeli Pucchi, that Ghaywan has written with Sumit Saxena, strips down the capricious innocence of caste privilege to its hardwired mendacity. It also has a powerful and unsettling performance by Konkona Sen Sharma. If it weren’t for this film, Ajeeb Daastaans would have been interesting but meh.

Geeli Pucchi, the title itself dripping with some afternoon obscenity, levitates Ajeeb Daastaans to a higher level.

It tells the story of Bharti (Konkana Sen Sharma), a factory worker, who wants a desk job and has all the qualifications for it. But she is a dalit and carries her anger and hunger for more in her slightly protruding jaw and her body that is at once thrust forward and withdrawn.

Bharti’s curly hair is girly but the clothes she wears when she steps out into the world are manly. They are not a statement about her sexuality but an expression of the power she feels she has. Like the strip of cloth she wraps around her wrist to handle heavy equipment, Bharti’s clothes too say that she’s ready to take on anyone, anytime, anywhere.

But the power that Bharti thinks she has drains out of her body when she sees pretty Priya Sharma (Aditi Rao Hydari), so fragile and dove-eyed, take up the job she so wants. Bharti is at once repulsed by and drawn to the power that comes in a petite size of feminine fragility.

“Ajeeb-ajeeb log hote hain aur badboo bhi aati hai,” Priya says in a friendly banter to

Bharti, inviting her to share her tiffin at her desk and not on the factory floor, thinking Bharti is one of her. Bharti’s reaction to Priya’s casually racist remarks, prejudices is not visible on her face, but her body registers it as a hole in her armour.

And then one day, when Bharti suddenly senses that she has some power, she doesn’t flinch using it as a gentle but sharp whip that’s gripped tightly by her rage.

The film’s last shot is so fabulous that I want to watch it again and again on a loop. A jeeb Daastaans, which explores women’s desire through all its stories and lets them come up for air for a bit before pulling them down again, begins with Majnu, a story about a husband wife trapped in a loveless marriage.

Directed by Shashank Khaitan, it’s set in a large mansion in a Hindi-speaking, gunwielding world where Babloo Bhaiyya (Jaideep Ahlawat) rules. He is married off to Lepakshi (Fatima Sana Shaikh) for financial and political reasons but on the wedding night itself he tells her that he won’t be able to love her but expects her to keep khandaan ki izzat.

Lepakshi’s frustration coils around her everyday and she grabs every opportunity to humiliate Babloo and get some jollies for herself.

The threat of violence looms when Babloo Bhaiyya is around, even when Raj (Armaan Ralhan), the dashing, educated son of the driver, arrives to fan all sorts of desires.

Despite a pair of fried testicles, a cutesy twist that revisits masculinity, and the film’s predictable end, Majnu is blessed by excellent acting by all, including Raj’s angry mother. It also has a lovely song — Bagiya mein bhanwara...

Khilauna, directed by Raj Mehta, is a complex story about grey characters that is revealed through a police investigation. But what they are investigating is shared with us later, in a dark, gory, stunning moment.

Meenal (Nushrratt Bharuccha) is a young, sexy maid who dotes on her little sister

Binny (Inayat Verma). Sushil (Abhishek Banerjee) the istri-walla loves Meenal and Binni but has no power and bristles everytime injustice accosts him.

Meenal has a clear worldview — she knows what her place is in this world organised by caste and class. She knows she has no power except guile and the fact that she is very attractive. She uses both to curry small favours.

Smiling and winking at little Binni as she plays on the emotions of women she works for, bitching out one, pandering to the new officer in town, her circumstances and routine exploitation have brought a hard coldness to her heart that she unknowingly passes on to Binni. And when Binni acts on her own desires and feelings of jealousy, it leaves even Meenal stunned.

The film, also written by Sumit Saxena, is carried by Nushrratt Bharuccha’s charming but inevitable duplicity.

A nkahi, directed by Kayoze Irani, is the last film in the anthology and tells the story of Natasha (Shefali Shah), a mother who can’t cope with husband’s disinterest in their daughter who is losing her hearing. And then, a man walks into her life, all sparkles, warmth and sunshine. Though Ankahi is lit by lovely performances by Shefali Shah and Manav Kaul, it felt dull and cliched.