Director Kiran Rao’s debut film Dhobi Ghat is a lyrical and tender short story about four lives, one city and love, loss and longing. The film smiles at life’s possibilities and weeps at its disappointments. There are no heroes or villains, there is no one to blame. It’s just how life is — sometimes it’s a darling and sometimes it’s such a bitch.
We set out on our journey in the backseat of a Mumbai taxi to meet the four people whose lives will connect and then disconnect. It’s raining outside. The glass windows are up and foggy. Dil dhadak dhadak ke... is playing on the radio and a girl is talking to Imran. We don’t see them, just hear her talk about Mumbai, Marine Drive and the sea which “smells of people’s dreams”. The girl in the taxi has a video camera and we are looking through its lens. There is something about her voice. It’s excited, affectionate and belongs to a bright-eyed visitor from a small town.
Next we meet Arun (Aamir Khan) who is inspecting a house he wants to rent on Mohammad Ali Road. Arun looks around, nods, smiles, but doesn’t say a word. His broker lets us know that Arun, a painter, was keen on a view of old Mumbai.
Then we visit Munna (Prateik Babbar) and his family in a house that’s the size of a double-bed. It’s night and time to go to work. Munna grabs his lathi and torch. He is a dhobi by day and a rat killer by night.
Shai (Monica Dogra), an investment banker in America, is in Mumbai on a sabbatical. She’s staying at her rich parents’ house and working on a project on “shifts in traditional occupations” that involves doing what she loves most: taking photographs.
Shai arrives at the opening of Arun’s new series, Buildings, with a friend. There’s champagne, rich aunties and intellectuals. Arun, lips pursed, makes an unexpected appearance and his agent Vatsala (Kittu Gidwani) lets us know that he can be gruff. But Arun raises a toast to Mumbai, “My muse, my whore, my beloved”.
Arun and Shai get chatting and he takes her home. They drink, dance and make love as stringed instruments play in the background. But in the morning things are different.
We go back to the girl with the video camera. She’s at Gateway of India and we see her. She’s Yasmin Noor (Kriti Malhotra), striking in a burqa.
Cut to Shai’s house where she takes clothes from the dhobi, Munna, invites him in for a cup of tea and figures Munna knows where Arun’s new house is. Munna wants to be an actor and asks if Shai will click his portfolio. She says yes, but on the condition that he will let her photograph him at work.
Back with Arun, in his new house, where he finds a box with some silver trinkets, photographs and three videotapes marked “Pehli chithi”, “Doosri chithi”, “Teesri chithi”. He plugs in his camera and sits down to watch. On his TV screen is Yasmin, sitting in what is now his kitchen, and taking to her brother Imran, who is back home in Malihabad, Uttar Pradesh, about cooking chukandar gosht for her husband. From an under-construction building across his house, Shai is watching and photographing Arun. 
As we toggle between these four lives, travelling through a vagrant and beautiful Mumbai, we begin to get to know each one, share their secrets and feel the bonds that are forming. Munna smiles every time Shai is next to him, in crowded markets, restaurants, at the dhobi ghat. But Shai can’t get Arun out of her head. Arun is obsessed with the girl talking about her neighbours, her life on his TV screen. Arun’s face and shoulders begin to relax. He walks on the beach, smiles, begins to paint...  

KIRAN RAO’S Dhobi Ghat is a film with a desi heart but a mind that thinks in English. Though a tad affected, it is also delightful and heartfelt. The film moves at the pace of life watching everyday moments that are mundane and poignant, but it has a spring in its step. Dhobi Ghat has moments and emotions that will stay with you for long, and keep you warm.
Rao’s storytelling has a charming freshness and cleverness about it, and her direction has art house sensitivity, especially in the way she captures the city, its sounds and silence. She is sincere to all her characters and encourages us to get intimate with them. We meet them when they are laughing with friends and family and when they are alone. Her camera stays on for a few seconds after an interaction or episode, to be with them when they are alone. We are completely comfortable in their space and develop empathy for all.
Aamir Khan, strangely, begins on a very weak note. The character of a reclusive artist makes him uneasy, so he hams. In one scene he uses the F-word and then stares at the floor to prolong the moment. Wife and husband want us to take note. But Aamir is so exaggerated and the shot so staged that I wish they hadn’t bothered. However, as the story progresses, he grows on us.
Monica Dogra as the America-returned Shai is an intruder initially. But the more time she spends with Munna and us, the more we begin to like her. Kriti Malhotra is lovely, mesmerising.
The star of the film, however, is Prateik Babbar. His character, of course, is most endearing. But it’s not just that. Our connect with this handsome and talented son of Smita Patil is instant and enduring.