Starring <strong>Farooq Shaikh, Deepti Naval, Ravi Baswani, Rakesh Bedi</strong> Directed by <strong>Sai Paranjpye</strong> Rating: <strong>****</strong>

The incandescent Manisha Koirala, now recovering well after surgery in the US, might have expressed a disenchantment with friends back home in Mumbai. But that doesn’t mean she has lapsed into a self-pitying mode. Far from it, the lioness-hearted fighter is gearing up for full recovery in the next couple of months and then a return to Mumbai to start afresh.

<strong>Starring Deepti Naval, Farouq Shaikh, Swara Bhaskara</strong> <strong>Directed by Avinash Kumar Singh</strong> <strong>Rating: ***</strong> There is something enormously heartwarming about a mother-daughter film where the two actresses playing the roles look naturally comfortable together. For debutant director Avinash Kumar Singh, casting Deepti Naval and Sawara Bhaskara in the key roles is half the battle won.

For filmmaker Sudhir Mishra the news of Manisha Koirala’s illness was a painful reminder of the past when his wife Renu Saluja had succumbed to cancer. Manisha is not only an actress that Sudhir worked with in the film <em>Calcutta Mail</em> some years ago, she was and remains a close friend.

Farooque Shaikh and Deepti Naval, the popular on-screen couple of yesterday’s years, are all set to rediscover their chemistry in debutant director Avinash Singh’s Listen Amaya after 28 years. Talking on the film, Singh averred, “Both of these actors had been in our minds since we wrote the story. Since they have not been seen together for a long time, there is an air of curiosity. I am glad they are doing the film helmed by a first-time director and producer in me.”