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Masaan is a story set in real Benaras which is better known as Kashi. Why did I mention real Benaras? This film makes you meet the other side of Kashi which is more active in the night than the day, the cremation Ghats where the dead bodies are burnt as per Hindu rituals. The cremation Ghats of Kashi has been mostly portrayed in films and serials as a mystic place but here the director, a débutant Neeraj Ghyawan and co-writer Varun Grover portrays the cremation Ghats as a usual business place where the bodies are burnt after dying. But, the film has a hidden treasure beyond the burning of the bodies in the cremation ghats. It's the burning of people griefs and the courage to let go their guilt to celebrate a new life.

The urge of arriving in life is portrayed by each central character of the film – Richa Chadha as Devi, Sanjay Mishra as Devi's father and Vicky Kaushal as Deepak. While Devi wants to get out of the narrow mindedness of the city and attain more liberty in the form of experiencing love and pleasure, the other character Deepak wants to break his shackles of being a pyre burning lower caste youth of becoming a civil engineer and dreams of marrying his upper caster girlfriend.

Sanjay Mishra runs a small shop at the cremation ghat and is trying to rejuvenate the cold relationship with his daughter and in order to protect her from a scandal; he breaches his own moral principles when he forces a child who works in his shop to take part in the dangerous game of collecting coins from the Ganges. The story brings twist in the each character's lives when they are forced to do a soul searching. Their soul searching brings dark moments in the film when you feel sad about their lives. But wait, there is light after the dawn and no grief is permanent. The films at the end leaves you with a message that Masaan is not only about burning the physical bodies but also about letting go your grief and making your soul guilt free.

The film is beautifully written with a strong message and a good débutant director attempt towards the serious sensible storytelling cinema. The music by Indian Ocean gels with the characters lives and the city's backdrop. The lyrics and music of the songs 'Tu Kisi Rail si gujarti hai' based on Dushyant Kumar's poetry and Man Kasturi re' are simply magical and has lifetime music value. All credits to the Director Neeraj Ghyawan who has been trained under Anurag Kashyap and the co-writer Varun Grover for such a beautiful story. Both the seasoned and the débutant actors have worked hard on their characters and that is evident from their acting.

I want to end this review for Masaan with these few lines in Hindi.. Jo Man ko Chu Jaye Use khubsurat ahsas kehte hai, Jo Atma ko Chu Jaye Use Masaan Kehte hai !

I was eagerly waiting for Ek Thi Dayaan since last one month and had to struggle to watch it on Friday night in a Multiplex in Mumbai after clearing a hectic schedule of prior commitments. Well, it was a sense of relief as the film didn't disappointed me. So go ahead and read it to decide if you want to watch this movie or not.

Emraan Hashmi, Bobo, the magician is in a live-in relationship with Tamra, a beautiful girl played by Huma Qureshi. He has a wonderful life as he is a successful magician, has a beautiful girlfriend and the couple want to adopt a lovable orphan kid. But wait; there is a haunting past which keeps knocking every now and then in front of Bobo as he remembers his childhood life; when he had an adorable father, a sweet little sister and his step mom Diana whom he hated her.

The story swings between Psychological Thriller, Paranormal and Supernatural situations forcing the audience to keep guessing on what lies behind the spooky events that unfolds every now and then in the film.

The events no doubt are scary and chill the bottom of your seat and even force you to jump out of your seat once or twice. The scenes where he thinks that the lift of his building goes to the hell where all the creepy people of his building who did sins in their life now stay in the hell of the building after their death scares you like hell. The mystery behind spotting a witch through the help of a book on Witches makes you think whether the witches are a reality. After a long time I get to see the right kind of haunting cinema from the Bollywood which is different from the usual Vikram Bhatt movies.

Enters a psychiatrist who had counseled Bobo earlier and then he hypnotizes him to go back to his past and reveal on how his father and his sister died. But the beauty of this revelation lies in the fact that whether this is a real revelation or just a story cooked up the disturbed mind of the magician Bobo. His fiancée Tamra, with whom he gets married forces him to sell his old flat where he stayed as a kid to another character by the name Lisa Dutt played by Kalki Koechlin. There is a mystery around the character Lisa Dutt and Emraan Hashmi goes on to unlock this mystery.

This is where the film loosens a bit and the climax goes on to follow a typical Vikram Bhatt or Ramsey style cinema.

Emraan Hashmi has matured as an actor and has a proved screen presence. Huma Qureshi is bold, sensuous and acts well. She is one actor who will go a long way in Bollywood. Konkana Sen Sharma as the Stepmother does well in her Grey shades. The supporting cast played by Pawan Malhotra who plays the father of Emraan Hashmi also plays his part well. I really liked the role of Psychiatrist played by Rajatava Dutta and of younger Emraan Hashmi played by Vishesh Tiwari.

Kannan Iyer as the débutant director gets a thumbs up as he tries to break away from the typical thriller and horror movies that are being made in Bollywood. He manages to scare his audience and entertain as well. The script and screenplay is good and Vishal Bhardwaj stands up to his name. Not to forget we get to see the magic of Gulzaar Saab lyrics again as we can't stop hearing, humming and appreciating the song "Yaaram" from the movie.

Overall, the movie is a good watch and takes you on a drive to the mystery world of witches, hell, hallucination and horror.

I am writing this review after 15 days of the movie being released, but I have still not been get over this movie though I have watched it twice. Many readers would think me crazy that what all I saw in Talaash, that the movie has grown over me so much. I would not have been able to answer this correctly, had I not seen it second time. Talaash starts with the dirty yet beautiful screenplay showing the underbelly of Mumbai. The starting scene where a man is walking with a guitar, pimp, customers and prostitutes are standing outside neon lit shady bars, an old lady on the footpath just staring are mixed together to show the other side of Mumbai . The story is good and the screenplay is such that this can be used as an example to teach students of cinema. All the actors in the movie have played their role close to reality. Aamir Khan as a normal cop who is as puzzled with the case as all other cops is the beauty of the character and I doubt that any other current star could have done justice to this role. Rani Mukherjee as his wife and Kareena Kapoor as a prostitute are other examples of perfect casting. I would love to do Special mention for two other actors - Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Rajkumar Yadav who is the new breed of class actors and leaves their impact even in a small role. Talaash is not an out and out suspense thriller, in fact it's a Suspense and Emotional drama with paranormal message attached to the whole film. Can you think of any other Bollywood cinema where emotional scenes are as strong as the suspense of the movie? Aamir Khan is a grief stricken father who has lost his 8 year old kid and is a restless human being. He is investigating the accidental death of a young Film star and is in the search of the answers to his death. He meets a prostitute Rosy, played by Kareena Kapoor who not only provides him information about the case but also soothes his grief and pain. Rani Mukherjee plays the role of a disturbed wife of Aamir Khan and them as a couple is not able to bring joy to their life because of their son's death in an accident. The emotional scenes between them take you to another level of the film. However, when the film ends, you find that the answer to the death of the Film star is not as important as the answers to his grief and guilt. That's where the story scores points; also I feel that the pace of the movie has been deliberately kept a bit slow as increasing the pace of the movie might have confused the audience. All the characters in the movie have been carefully built where there is a very line between them being an evil and good. The simple love and friendship between the pimp Nawazuddin and an age past prostitute looks real and keeps you thinking even when you walk out of the theater. The music is good and I have started respecting Ram Sampath even more. I love the background scores especially Muskanein jhoothi hai and Jiya lage Na; though all the other songs are good too. The best parts of these songs are that they are not forced upon you, but they help you to get in the rhythm of the movie. Talaash is not a perfect movie and I would also not say it's a cult movie. I would say that this movie should be watched because of the story, screenplay, and background music by Ram Sampath, class acting by all the actors and a perfect mix of mainstream and art cinema. I didn't like the suspense of Talaash in the end and I wished that Reema Kagti and Zoya Akthar could have written a slightly different climax. But No movie is perfect and you can ignore this deficiency to watch a good cinema. However, if you are bogged down by the climax, than I doubt that you will like the movie. Also, don't hope for an edge of the seat thriller as I guess it was never meant to be made like that. So go and watch Talaash and enjoy a different cinema which is set in the dark but will show light to the different kind of cinema. My rating is 7 out of 10.