Vodka Diaries 2018

In Manali, a series of murders pulls ACP Ashwini Dixit and his junior Ankit Dayal into a case centred around Vodka Diaries, a club that becomes the hub of the mystery. On the same night, three carefree and flirtatious young men are slain in the presence of three enigmatic women, turning the nightclub into a focal point for clues and rumors.

As investigators dig deeper, Ashwini’s wife, the poet Shikha Dixit, disappears, raising personal stakes and complicating the case. The search for her pulls the detective further into a web of suspicion, where professional and private lines blur and every clue seems to tug at a hidden truth.

Yet the case takes an impossible turn: the supposed victims are later shown to be alive and well, and none of the people Ashwini has met recognise him anymore. The detective finds himself pursued by a reality that refuses to stay intact, as anonymous calls and cryptic hints echo through his days and nights, eroding trust and shaping a chilling sense of pursuit.

The chase broadens, testing loyalties and perception as he races to locate his wife and uncover the killer behind the disturbances, even as the line between memory and fiction grows increasingly thin.

In a climactic revelation, it is disclosed that Ashwini’s true identity is actually Rishi Gautam, a renowned writer. On the day his new novel, Redemption of the Murderer, hits the shelves, Gautam quarrels with Shikha after seeing her with another man named Mayuk. In a fit of rage, and overwhelmed by accusations of infidelity and neglect, he accidentally kills Shikha by hurling a glass bottle at her.

Haunted by the deed, Gautam is examined by psychiatrist Dr. Roshni, and he is diagnosed with intensive obsessive identification disorder. He begins to hallucinate that he is the central detective from his own book—Ashwini—and that Shikha remains alive with him in a fabricated, cinematic version of reality.

To guide him toward truth, Roshni orchestrates a dramatic therapeutic device: she re-creates the entire plot of his novel, with actors stepping into the roles of its characters and urging Gautam to perform as Ashwini in his book. The intention is to coax him to confront his real identity by playing through the fiction that owns his life.

Eventually, Mayuk testifies that the murder was accidental, and Gautam is acquitted in court. The closing image finds the writer living in a secluded cottage, continuing to compose, while Shikha’s presence—real or imagined—haunts his days and nights.