Starring Shabana Azmi, Goldy Notay, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Jimi Mistry

Written & Directed by Gurinder Chadha (Rating: **)

As Shakespeare said in another context, this is a grave matter. Gurinder Chadha’s new….er, ghoulish comedy (for the want of a better terminology) is also a gravy matter. Ghouls rise from the dead and mess around with ladels of curries and gravies in what could easily be termed the most messy climax of desi-gone-ballistic-firangi cinema.

By the time the masala curries chutneys gravies and other acidic edibles begin to fall across a singing-dancing gathering of NRIs at a big fat Punjabi wedding, the plot is too far gone to be called eccentric or even bizarre.

Hai Marjawaan (It’s A Wonder Afterlife) is one those films that should not have happened. It is way too strained in concept and far too outlandish in execution to hold the audiences’ interest beyond the first ten minutes when we see the benignly murderous Mrs Sethi ( Shabana Azmi, in full-blooded form) surrounded by the ghosts of the people she killed because they wouldn’t let their kin be married to her overweight daughter.