Simir, A Movie follows four strangers in Mumbai, each stuck in a rut. Mugdha is losing her bookshop to a change in how the world reads, and cannot bring herself to write the book she has always wanted to write. Iswar, an accountant with a professional gift for balancing the books, is wrestling with a heartbreak that has thrown his own life out of balance. Yash came to the stage for what theatre could be, but earns his living in soap operas. Simir, a recently divorced stand-up comic, stands before audiences feeling like an imposter, a nakli vidushak, a fake jester.
Then a mysterious invitation reaches all four, and puts four people who had no reason to be in the same room into the same room. What happens next, no one sees coming.
Written in late 2022 and shot in early 2023, in the long aftermath of the pandemic, the film grew from a simple observation: when help came, it often came from strangers. Set in a city that runs on strangers, Simir asks what we owe one another.
Its theme song, Hazaaron Hain Khwahishein, is a waltz composed by Udbhav Ojha and sung in two versions, by Senjuti Das and Arnab Chatterjee, with lyrics by Anand Simir, written as a tip of the hat to Mirza Ghalib.
In Hindi and English, with English subtitles
And Simir, a stand-up comic who has recently been divorced, stands before audiences feeling like an imposter, a nakli vidushak, a fake jester, as he calls himself, losing an argument with himself over whether he ever had the right to be up there at all.
Yash is a theatre actor who came to the stage for what the stage could be, and earns his living from soap operas, because what he came to the theatre to do has no price in the market. That is what he cannot forget, and cannot forgive himself for.
Advocate Bhavya Sangwan, an enthusiastic divorce lawyer whose practice thrives in a city that stretches relationships thin on an industrial scale.
Mugdha owns a bookshop and is losing the bookstore, not to fate, but to the fact that the way the world reads has changed. Worse still, she cannot find the courage to do the one thing she loves more than anything in the world: write a book.
Iswar is an accountant, which is to say a man with a professional gift for balancing the books, wrestling with a broken heart that has thrown his own life out of balance.
The song at the heart of Simir, a waltz that answers fate with company.
The story behind Simir, told as a storybook for grown-ups. Turn the first pages here. Sign up, and the whole book comes to your inbox.
This is where the preview ends. The rest of the story, the strangers, the song and the full lyrics are in the complete book.
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