If you love to watch simple stories, you will enjoy Ishq-e-Nadaan. Though this movie is slow-paced, the way these three stories are interwoven is interesting to watch. Towards the end, it kind of starts playing with your mind. So, here is a word of caution: If you decide to watch this movie, watch it attentively. If you miss a few dialogues, you might find it difficult to understand the connections later. 

Ishq-e-Nadaan narrates three stories of six individuals, Charulata (Neena Gupta), Subhash Kapoor (Kawaljit Singh), Ashutosh (Mohit Raina), Ramona Singh (Lara Dutta), Siya (Shriya Pilgaonkar), and Piyush (Suhail Nayyar). As the movie starts, we see Charulata coming to Mumbai to stay with her daughter and son-in-law. Here, she meets a filmmaker, Subhash Kapoor and slowly yet steadily, they develop a lasting friendship. Should we call it love? Ummm no, let’s call it friendship and companionship that elderly need as they start feeling lonely after they lose their partner. As the story progresses, we are told that Charulata is also missing a stranger she had met on a trip to Europe with her husband years ago. 

Parallely, we see a lonely Ashutosh not vacating the house he is living in because that is where he, his late wife, and daughter have been living. The house should be given up for redevelopment but he keeps postponing it. While he is looking for a new place, he is still hoping that the house will not be snatched away from him. Unfortunately, it’s just a hope. As he tries to carry on with life, he meets a businesswoman in the hotel he works at. Over a period of time, they become good friends as Ramona starts visiting the hotel frequently. One day when Ramona tells Ashutosh that she might not visit Mumbai now, he confesses his feelings to her. Unfortunately, she already has someone in her life and thinks of Ashutosh as a good friend. The grieving heart who had found hope in life after a long time, loses it again. But he doesn’t give up. In a contest, he wins a trip to Italy and he decides to take that trip. With or without companion, he decides to live a life he desires to. 

The third story we see, again parallelly, is of Siya and Piyush. When Siya is introduced, we see her stepping out of the hospital and fainting in the middle of the road. She wakes up in the car of a mother and son who are driving back home after coming from a matrimonial meeting. Piyush, who is comfortable being a home-makers as he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life chasing material comforts, finds a friend in Siya, who is pregnant and has moved to Mumbai from the US after she decided to break up with her live-in partner, Raghav. While Piyush is comfortable with Siya carrying someone’s else’s baby and her decision to keep the child, he becomes her support system. From organising her home to mankind sure she eats healthy, home-cooked meals, he takes care of her and her pregnancy. Now, the question is, Siya being a career-oriented woman, will she accept a man who wants to be a home-maker? What will happen when her ex gets to know that she is pregnant with his baby? To simplify things, Piyush informs Raghav about Siya’s pregnancy and that is when things take a complicated turn. With what is being revealed about Siya, will Piyush still accept her? 

WHAT DID I LOVE ABOUT ISHQ-E-NADAAN? 

The writing! Sudeep Nigam normalising a man wanting to be a home-maker and the woman being career-oriented is what I loved the most. The concept that it takes two to make a home and irrespective of the gender, it’s up to you two to decide how this home will be made is truly beautiful. I am not saying why should always a woman take care of the house or it’s also the man’s responsibility but why should always man be the one taking care of finances? Why should it only be his responsibility? Why can’t anyone take care of finances and the other, of turning a house into a home? When writers subtly change their audience’s views on gender biases, that too, this beautifully, they should be not just applauded but also rewarded for using their pen to bring that much-needed change. 

I also loved how Ishq-e-nadaan spoke about companionship and the will to live, even after something that you so badly wanted, ends. This could be death or separation. But finding the will to live again and then finding hope, finding love to make it easier is a lesson we need to learn from this film. Most movies always spoke only about emotional destruction and not falling in love again as that is considered betrayal. This needs to change. Life gets difficult for people who lose their loved ones but that doesn’t mean that they should now only wait for their time to die. Till you are alive, you should live and live well. 

And last but not the least, the superhit Saans jodi, Kawaljit Singh and Neena Gupta. Seeing them together is ‘nostalgia.’

To wrap it up, I would say Ishq-e-Nadaan is that rare film on OTT that you can enjoy with your family.