Muramba 2017

Alok and Indu have been dating for three years, navigating a relationship that sits at the intersection of ambition, security, and growing expectations. Indu works as an executive in an ad agency and is relentlessly focused on her career, eager to climb higher and faster. Alok, despite earning a gold medal in his Masters in Business Administration, makes his living as a substitute accounts teacher at a coaching class. The contrast between Indu’s fast-paced professional world and Alok’s more uncertain day-to-day work forms a quiet cornerstone of their bond, coloring conversations with unspoken doubts and a sense that they’re drifting toward different horizons.

A phone call at a party—one where Indu isn’t present—sparks a breakup between the couple. The moment is small, but its aftermath echoes through their lives, as Alok reluctantly tells his parents about the split. His parents, Sachin Khedekar and Chinmayi Sumit, know and accept their son’s relationship and had hoped for an engagement next year. Their discomfort lies not in the rupture itself, but in the fear that there’s more beneath the surface that neither Alok nor Indu has fully aired. They urge him to speak openly, to explain what happened, while he protests that the truth is already clear to him.

The film then unfolds through a series of flashbacks that illuminate the fault lines in their romance. Alok recalls feeling insecure and jealous when Indu contemplates moving to Kerala for a year or when she forges friendships with male co-workers, all while her demanding job leaves her with little time or attention for him. He interprets these changes as signs that the relationship is slipping away, and he starts to justify the breakup in terms of Indu’s changing behavior—her partying and drinking, the perception that she has less time for him, and his own belief that he cannot keep up with her pace. He argues that he cannot simply wait for the chances he’s missed to come around again, and that a fresh start would be better for both of them.

Yet his father wants to hear Indu’s side of the story too. He contrives a way to bring Indu into a shared moment with Alok and his mother—lunch out with the parents—so that the pair can speak and be understood in a calmer setting. Indu agrees out of respect for Alok’s parents, and the restaurant setting becomes a revealing stage. As the three adults navigate the social dance of discussing their relationship, the moment builds toward a frank confrontation: each person is asked to name the best qualities of the other. Alok, perhaps unexpectedly, acknowledges that Indu is, in many ways, better than he is. The sincerity of the exchange unsettles Indu just as it unsettles the quiet expectations that have held their relationship in place.

Back at home, the private conversations that follow turn sharper. Indu confronts Alok about how he spoke about their break-up to his parents, and about the pattern she’s seen—his reluctance to commit to steady employment and his tendency to drift between jobs. She reveals that she has read his emails in an attempt to understand his behavior, and she confronts him with the hard truth that he lied about quitting a year-long internship in Boston. Her questions cut to the heart of fear—What is he afraid of? Why does he retreat when things get challenging?

In the present day, the domestic orchestra of Alok’s parents preparing for guests underscores the ongoing tension between memory and present obligations. Alok, distracted, has forgotten that it is his parents’ anniversary. A quiet, revealing moment arrives when he discovers his father listening to an old recording in which he once spoke about Indu and the role she could play in helping Alok move beyond his fear of failure. The revelation is a turning point: the father explains that he believed Indu could push Alok to step out of his comfort zone, but that Alok never really gave her that chance to be seen as a partner in growth. Realizing his misjudgments, Alok hurries to Indu’s house to offer a sincere apology, and this time Indu forgives him.

The film closes with a gentle, hopeful reaffirmation of the couple’s bond. Alok and Indu come together to celebrate his parents’ anniversary, acknowledging the lessons learned about ambition, fear, and forgiveness. The story holds a steady mirror to how a relationship can be tested by differing life rhythms and how the warmth of understanding and a willingness to grow can bridge those divides.