Emotions Stirred in the Wake of Crime

Ishqiya reoccupies the same old ground: strength of woman’s character tainted by crime. The story is set in those stomping grounds which have been time and again used by many filmmakers to catch upon criminal backdrops. This time one of the hinterlands of India, Uttar Pradesh has been used.
A notorious criminal, Arun Verma from Gorkhpur has a dangerously ill famed gang which is engulfed in kidnapping and looting. His criminal career is proceeding with great guns until he gets himself a possessive wife, Kisna (Vidya Balan). Kisna craves for a major chunk of his love which he usually gives to his criminal indulgences. He finds his targets and plans flickering and shattering. However she wants to resurrect his evil spirit and submerge her husband in her true love and emotions so that he would leave his anti-social life. All these make him ambivalent and in order to escape her intense love, he flees away and disguises himself as dead.
Being sure of her husband’s existence, Kisna, sets herself on the bleak search for her husband. How she does so, is the main thrust of the story and how coincidences support her is the main focus. Two other male counterparts who seem to be trivial characters in the beginning, Mustaqh and Babban, bring a new lease of hope to her. How she uses her feminity as a weapon to rope in both, emotionally as well as sexually, is another interesting part of the story.
The end of the movie marks a sense of achievement and more than that it somewhere touches fringes of women’s empowerment. Kisna blows up her emotions and releases her suppressed self.
We can find assortment of emotions in every character mainly in the woman’s character that blends her love and hatred. She, the protagonist avails this blend as her strength. Besides this, throughout the movie we can find some confounded and trivial emotions which take actual roles in the end.
Characters have been drawn with leeway in order to develop them in some natural ways whereas the male protagonist has been kept absent. Vidya Balan has once again proved her acting skills flawlessly. She widens the ambit of a traditional middle class look where she gives new definition to saree wearing, carrying it amazingly. Nashuruddin Shah’s phenomenal acting is again unquestionable whereas Arshad Warsi has stolen the show, giving a jaw dropping performance for his well scripted role. Music has some vibrant beauty. Some of its songs like Ishqbatuta, Dil to Bachha hai ji have been extremely appreciated even before the release of the movie. Locations have been chosen, considering the storyline, dwelling deep into eastern UP.
Besides this, the movie emanates a tragic plot but somehow manages to achieve a happy and contented ending for viewers.
To sum up, we can say Ishqiya does not fit into a proper love story definition; neither does it dwell on the strategy of happy endings. On the contrary, Ishqiya sets another parameter for tragic love stories but with a difference. And one should go and watch this movie in order to discover this difference.