New Delhi: In a Hindi film landscape that still treats older couples as narrative footnotes, Thursday Special places an ageing marriage at the very centre and dares to build its emotional conflict not around something very simple: food. The 27-minute short film also signals a shift in Indian cinema, where late-life companionship and grief are moving out of the margins and into the mainstream.
The movie directed by Varun Tandon follows an ageing couple–Ram (Ramakant Dayama) and Shakuntala (Anubha Fatehpuria)—who are quietly living in an unnamed town in North India. Presented by Shoojit Sircar and Vikramaditya Motwane, the poignant film uses everyday cooking as its emotional grammar to examine how long marriages deal with loss and how a seemingly minor betrayal can fracture years of intimacy.
“Food is not shown much on screens, but it is one of the constant sources of joy, if you think of it, like every day, people look towards me. And more importantly, it’s one of the most beautiful ways of showing love for a person. I wanted to show that this is an aged couple, they’re living kind of a mundane life,” said Tandon, writer and director of the film.
Years of trust shattered
Every Thursday, Shakuntala wakes up at the crack of dawn, excited about making food. This is unlike the other days of the week, when food is mostly sustenance and habit—Thursdays mean cooking something special for her husband’s office potluck lunch.
Dressed in a faded cotton saree, she gets to work after checking her table calendar and opening a worn recipe book.
The film opens with her making Yakhni Paneer, grinding cashews, slicing paneer, and putting on a timer to check when the dish is done. She packs the entire curry into Ram’s tiffin, leaving none for herself, except that tiny taste she sneaks with her finger.
Ram waits for Shakuntala to hand him the tiffin, a smile on both their faces. He also praises her food from the previous week. It is a moment of tenderness with a hint of grief when she asks if Ram could get back from work earlier, because it is their children’s death anniversary, and she wants to bake a cake.
They don’t dwell on the moment—it is as if acceptance has come in the long years since the accident, and in the domesticity the couple shares.
Ram seems equally excited to leave for work, tiffin in hand, and looks unhappy when he gets extra files at work. But at lunch hour, Ram hands over his tiffin to the watchman, and his response indicates that it’s another ritual.
Ram then heads to a local eatery for their ‘Thursday special’ menu—masala fish. Except, Shakuntala catches him getting out of the restaurant, and all the years of happiness, devotion and faith come crashing down.
It is a double-whammy for Shakuntala—Ram is ‘cheating’ on her food, that too with non-vegetarian food. From her body language, it becomes obvious she is a vegetarian, and she probably does not even let it inside her house.
The couple is already dealing with old age and the devastating loss of their children in an accident. In that emotional vacuum, food, routine and Thursdays had become their way of holding on. But when that routine cracks, so does Shakuntala’s trust.
The moment—Ram’s guilt-stricken, ‘child caught in lie’ face and heartbreak and anger writ large on Shakuntala’s face—is a testimony to the two seasoned actors’ expertise.
“What got me excited is that this is a couple who have lived their life a certain way, and when the conflict happens, the stakes are very different. If the same thing were happening to a young couple, it’s not that exciting. Spending so many years together, knowing each other’s routines, thinking that you know everything about your partner, and then you add 30 or 40 years to that. And then when the conflict or when something goes wrong, then it’s just dramatically exciting,” said Tandon.
The idea also came from observing his own relatives, where men often tend to eat outside, but hide the fact from their spouses.
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‘Pure story, pure feelings’
The film was shot in Tandon’s hometown Kannauj, where his mother was in-charge of the food, and films were shot in familiar locations. It was released on the YouTube channel of Humans of Cinema on 29 January.
Thursday Special has won 25 awards in global film festivals, including Best Narrative Short at the New York Indian Film Festival, Best International Short Film at the Adelaide Independent Film Festival, and Best Narrative Short at the Tryon International Film Festival.
“It’s a film that you can talk about and discuss and not just from an aesthetic perspective. While it’s beautifully directed and performed, it is truly special in terms of pure story, pure feeling,” said Vikramaditya Motwane.
The film does not end on a note of pain, but with the hope of repair and reconciliation, highlighting how marriage is hard work, and both participants have to choose each other, every day for the rest of their lives. In a way, Tandon shows what the ‘rest of the days’ look like, once the marriage has weathered storms, and people age.
“It’s a delicately handled take on marriage and middle-aged relationships—especially impressive for a young filmmaker,” said Shoojit Sircar.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)