However, it is not understandable where ‘Dhobi Ghat’ was unusual except a film without songs and interval. For the sake of intellectual and art film one can’t appreciate a half baked, ill executed project, just for the sake of Aamir who has a lot of good work behind his back. Do we really applaud a documentary that is influenced by a drama rather than being raw and uncut, it only ends up as a chase in travesty.

The documentary rather than the film actually tells us the story of a girl Yasmin Noor (Kriti Malhotra) whose recorded tapes finds a hand in Arun (Aamir Khan), a painter, loner, intense and mostly silent who meets the girl Shai (Monica Dogra), an investment banker who is on a sabbatical trip to Mumbai from USA to pursue her hobby, photography. Shai gets a friend in Munna (Prateik Babbar) who is a ‘Dhobi’ and aspires to become an actor. On paper you will find the story intriguing. How the four characters are linked?

Shai meets Arun in an art exhibition and falls for him after a one-night stand but Arun gets apologetic in the morning and withdraws himself from any emotional attachment, displays a remorseful and impulsive behavior which makes Shai more than surprised.

She gets close to Munna and becomes his friend after realizing he knows Arun and his whereabouts.  Shai gives a favor to Munna – portfolio pictures – and in returns asks him to show her the real Mumbai. The intriguing and poignant part of the story is Yasmin’s video tapes that shows her life in Mumbai which is narrated and captured on a handheld video camera which Arun finds when he shifts into a new flat.

Overall Dhobi Ghat is all about Aamir and the story of Yasmin that plays on the video, Prateik and Monica works as fillers to the story all this while. Aamir’s character is a little too silent with same expression till the end and moreover his lighting up cigarettes too often looks artificial.

Dhobi Ghat being Aamir’s movie will get audience on the weekend but it will start hurting the actor later in the week more than anyone else.

The cinematography of Tushar Kanti Ray isn’t applaud-able, barring few frames. The background score of Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla was only soothing aspect when you start getting mild headache.

The film is a contrasting reality to what Aamir has done so far before this and that is the gist of the film which comes on the canvas at the end, but only few, who understand art, can make it out.

Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries) may have some differences in the treatment, in comparison to ‘Saazish’ where the characters fall in love and set up for a romantic sail on a yacht, only to get into a conspiracy that shakes their belief on each other. However, Dhobi Ghat’s storyline intersects the four and changes their lives, leaving them into a compelling relationship which later turns upside down.

Apart from Aamir, the film stars Prateik Babbar (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na), Monica Dogra, Kriti Malhotra, Kitu Gidwani, Nafisa Khan.

Dhobi Ghat will be released in the last week of February and it is 25th 2011, after too much of consideration and final thumbs up from Aamir.

Writer is a freelance journalist, script writer, avid blogger, poet, dreamer and story teller. Can be reached at http://twitter.com/#!/arziyaan