For the next day in the Alphabet challenge, we’re off to India and a film from Bollywood…

The 2010 indian film ‘Ishqiya’ (Ishqiya means ‘romantic’ I think), is a dark comedy centres around 3 main characters.

The first is Krishna Verma who is married to a local gangster that specialises in kidnappings called Vidyadhar Verma. Very early in the film Vidyadhar is killed in a gas explosion, leaving Krishna a widow.

We then meet an uncle (Iftikhar) and his nephew (Razzak) who are low end criminals and on the run from their boss having cost him money. The two make it to the town of their previous acquaintance Vidyadhar only to find that he has been killed and meet his widow Krishna.

The three set off on their own plans to kidnap a local steel magnate in order to settle debts and set themselves up. However, things are complicated by both the uncle and nephew developing feelings for Krishna, and also there being some ‘hidden agendas’ amongst the 3…

This is actually the first Bollywood film that I’ve ever watched. There’s no really good reason for that, I’ve always been interested in it as a film industry and been keen to watch some but have never actually managed it until now.

I really enjoyed ‘Ishqiya’. It had funny moments, a solid story with some good twists and some touching moments throughout.  I also thought that Krishna’s character (played by the actress Vidya Balan) was probably the most interesting female character that we’ve come across so far in the Alphabet Challenge films.