Two gentlemen – one sells cotton, the other spins yarns – meet when the former, sleepless in Ahmedabad, employs the latter, an inveterate raconteur from Calcutta, to tell him original, unpublished stories to help him deal with insomnia.
That, the kernel of The Storyteller, is derived from a short story by Satyajit Ray. Screenwriter Kireet Khurana develops a larger plot around it. In an unflashy but witty tribute to the master, the film explores creation and appropriation, delusion and actualisation. To its credit, it is anything but imitative.
Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s film adds new strands to the story to probe the differing mindsets of the two men. Yeh duniya sochne waalon ki nahin karne waalon ki hain (this world is not for thinkers but for doers), mild-mannered Ahmedabad trader Ratan Garodia (Adil Hussain), taunts the hired storyteller, Tarini Bandopadhyay (Paresh Rawal).
