Reviewed by Alicia Glass

In the lonely, crowded city of Mumbai, a pair of female Nurse roommates struggle with repressed desires, societal expectations, and the eternal weight of reality that crushes human dreams.

So Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) are Nurses who work at the same hospital, more often than not having to deal with obstetrics (the baby stuff) and female-centric healthcare in a far-too-large populace that doesn’t seem to care about their women, or children. Prabha is prim and mildly older, admonishing the younger trainee Nurses to get over their complaints about the stink of afterbirth as soon as possible, where younger free-spirited Anu is willing to risk getting arrested for giving birth control pills surreptitiously to a desperate young mother with too many children already.

Prabha has in theory a husband who, almost immediately after tying the knot, took off to Germany for a job, and of course she hasn’t heard from him in more than a year. When her husband sends her the gift of an expensive rice cooker, Prabha’s apparent numbness to the whole situation cracks open and she finds herself inundated with feelings again – abandonment and sadness of course, but also at the very least resentment in the holding pattern she’s stuck in, and a desire to be free, to decide what Prabha wants, even among the debilitating responsibilities of the day-to-day existence she leads with Anu. It doesn’t help that the hospital boasts a good man, the good Dr. Manoj (Azees Nedumangad) in fact, who’s been gently trying to court Prabha for some time now.

And then there’s Anu and her sneaking around to try and find good places to be intimate with her boyfriend Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon). Which would be charming and sweet, except that Shiaz happens to be Muslim and even in the cosmopolitan slums of Mumbai, it’s still the Hindu parents who decide whom their children may be with, and marry. Anu knows perfectly well that her parents would never approve of Shiaz and so their need to find hidden doorways, alcoves, and even make-outs in the pouring rain are mildly tinged with the danger of getting caught. Rumors are starting to wing around the hospital too, and Prabha is made aware of the situation by gossiping busybodies, much to her silent disapproval. After trying to help her friend Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), who was being forced out of her tiny apartment by the unfeeling legal system, nothing comes of it and Parvaty decides to leave Mumbai and take a small moving vacation to a beach town nearbyish, Prabha hatches a plan to try and divert Anu from her potentially disastrous actions.

Ostensibly to help Parvaty with her life-changing move, both Prabha and Anu take a mini-vacation to the beach town, and there is a lovely moment when Prabha discovers some ancient-but-still-good alcohol among Prabha’s things and the three of them get tipply and dance. Immersed in her own loneliness, Prabha fails to realize Anu snuck Shiaz to meet her at the seaside town until she witnesses it with her own eyes, and Anu is far too concerned with finally closing escrow as it were with Shiaz to realize she’s been caught anyway.

What happens at the beach town when societal scrutiny and expectations are less of a constant threat is lovely and made all the more poignant because, as Prabha and Anu are both well aware, this is a fleeting moment in time.

Full of the broad spectrum of human emotions, showcasing the different lights to be found even in the crawling shadows of the overcrowded cities and the freedom to shine bright in the welcoming darkness of the seaside town, embrace All We Imagine As Light with open arms.