The traffic jam forces characters to engage in conversations and explore a completely new side. Sunil Barve’s character at this point thinks of life as more than just his career in the most serene place of Khandala Hills. Characters for once leave their respective vehicles and the emotional baggage that they were holding on to so tightly. The Mumbai-Pune highway is completely blocked due to traffic jam. This rat race comes to a complete halt in the second half of Highway. In both films, the characters don’t empathize, thinking only from their perspective. His frustration boils and spills over on his driver who hasn’t had a decent sleep for a while. Neither parent understands Arjun’s dejection in Kapoor and Sons. Girish Kulkarni (who has also written the film) in Highway is trying to weigh the repercussions of his past. Rajat Kapoor knows what he is doing is wrong. Every character in both the movies is grappling with suppressed emotions. The conflicts in Kapoor and Sons and Highway are borne out of misunderstanding and lack of introspection of one’s actions. All of it is as random as life actually is. The beauty of Highway is, it never engages in contrivances or co-incidences. Their journeys overlap, crash against each other and some steer clear of anyone’s path. These are just some of the stories in this colorful world of Mumbai-Pune highway. An upper class woman taking a masseur on a clandestine weekend trip. An NRI man on his way to meet his dying dad. A married couple on the brink of a divorce. Kapoor And Sons feels like a close inspection of one of the multiple stories of Highway which includes people from all spheres of the society - rich, middle class and poor - traveling across the Mumbai-Pune highway. They fight and argue based on their own perception of other’s lives. Kapoor And Sons (2016) deals with a similar theme, where a dysfunctional family is sort of forced under one roof, to resolve their differences. We have distanced ourselves from our inner self and people close. We often forget to look inside ourselves to be aware of our feelings. There are deadlines to be met, knowledge to be gained, decisions to be taken. Our lives move at a breakneck speed without us even realizing it. The stillness and introspection that is necessary in our lives. Every family member felt secure in the darkness, in a strange sort of way, to say what they really felt. Marathi film Highway (2015) reminded me of that kind of stillness. No TV, no cooking, no studying, no reading newspapers.

The darkness would bring life to a standstill. I loved the nightly power outages in India which was a fairly regular occurrence in the 1990s.

Movie kapoor and sons