“Yes Meeta, come around at 9:30 pm with your niece to my place. I would
certainly like to put her to test before I employ her as my daughter’s
caretaker.” Said a workaholic Subhagi(VB) and a mother of one-year-old Pia whom
she took from the crèche and went home.
Subhagi is a divorced workaholic whose job does not permit her to spend
a lot of her time with her one-year-old daughter Pia. She is desperate to find
a caretaker of Pia, believing that at least Pia shall be home with a nanny
while she is at work.
Her doorbell rings and it is Meeta, the caretaker of the neighbouring
house who has got her niece, Reshma(AB) as a nanny for Subhagi’s daughter Pia.
Seeing Pia cry, Subhagi ensues Reshma with the task of stopping Pia’s cry which
she is able to stop within seconds. This convinces Subhagi that she can trust
Reshma with Pia and thus takes her documents and employs her in haste.
Meanwhile, Subhagi is also fighting the custody case for Pia with her
ex-husband Kanishk who is a doctor by profession. In honest terms, Kanishk is
not interested in keeping Pia but has to give in to the demands of his mother,
Bina(SS) who desperately wants her granddaughter with her and so out of
options, Kanishk is facing Subhagi for the custody case.
A few days later, Subhagi’s lawyer calls her and reprimands her for not
being present in the court in spite of the notice being delivered to her house
and because of this reason, the court rules the judgement in favour of Kanishk
and asks Subhagi to hand over the custody of Pia almost immediately to
Kanishk’s family. Subhagi is shattered and is furious that Reshma did not
handover the notice. She immediately dials Reshma but the phone is out of
reach. Subhagi believes that Reshma might have taken Pia to the doctor for the
regular vaccination and herself waits till she gets home to confront Reshma
that evening.
Subhagi reaches home and there is no one there. She tries calling Reshma
a couple of times but to no avail. She seemingly begins to get worried and runs
around in the neighbourhood calling out their names but receives no reply. She even goes to meet Meeta and it turns out that Meeta is not at home
and has gone to the suburbs of the city. Subhagi recalls Meeta telling her that
Reshma belongs somewhere to the south suburbs of Mumbai and so Subhagi
literally goes and scans the place but has no results. She comes back home
dismayed expecting Reshma and Pia to come home soon. She falls asleep and is
woken up by the banging of the doors by Bina who is there to take Pia. She
manages to convince Bina that Subhagi is missing and drives off looking for her
daughter.
She reaches the clinic only to know that Reshma had come there with Pia,
a day before yesterday and had taken a list of allergic medicines for Pia;
which are prescribed when long trips that are undertaken. Subhagi gets worried
and feels helpless. She decides to go to the police station but on the way back
she realises that if she went to the police station, the police would believe
that she just staged her daughter’s kidnapping to prevent compliance with
court’s orders.
Bina and Kanishk now know that Pia is missing and they reprimand Subhagi
for hiding her but Subhagi constantly tries to convince them that she did not
do any such thing and Bina finally calls the police. Inspector Dev(VK) listens
to Subhagi and Kanishk’s side of the story and decides to have a look at any
evidence suggesting Subhagi’s justification. He comes to know about Subhagi’s
reason of not approaching the police station, her stint at the doctor’s and the
caretaker. To be sure of what happened, Dev goes and meets Meeta who makes a
shocking revelation that she was paid by Reshma to introduce her as her niece
to Subhagi, as well as Meeta, claimed to have noticed Reshma’s extraordinary
interest to nanny Pia.
Subhagi is shattered. She does not believe what has been going for quite some time and is moved to tears. Dev asks for the documents of Reshma. When she hands them over to Dev, he simply smiles and throws them down
claiming that they are all false and her case is at a dead end. Bina continues
to allegate that it is all Subhagi’s set up to prevent handing over of Pia but
Dev doesn’t agree that Subhagi is guilty.
That evening as she is drawing the curtains, Subhagi sees a beggar
roaming about and realises that he may be of some help. He goes to her and
tells her that she may find both of them at the main brothel of the suburbs.
Subhagi goes there with him only to be knocked unconscious by the brothel owner
who keeps her at the brothel and gives the beggar some money and he leaves.
When she regains consciousness, she tells the brothel owner the entire story
and shows her Reshma’s photo seeing which the owner says that she did have
Reshma works for her but used to go missing for 4 hrs daily in the afternoon but
didn’t know where. She also gives her Reshma’s old number and asks her to
contact Akeel(TRB), the organ thief/girls supplier who got Reshma to that
brothel and used to take her out every day. The brothel owner also tells her to
go to ‘Zanzibar’ because Akeel was a frequent visitor there.
As Subhagi leaves the brothel, she gets a ransom call if she wanted Pia
and Reshma alive. She hurriedly takes out all the money and reaches the place
only to be greeted by Pia’s toys. Meanwhile, the police also reach and she
tells Dev about all the developments. Dev initially does not believe her but on
checking her call records he believes she isn’t lying and this time when Bina
claims that Subhagi is plotting, he silences her. Thus, gives confidence to
Subhagi that indeed he believes Pia was kidnapped. Later on, further
investigation suggests that actually, it was a prank call and that there were no
intentions of hurting the Subhagi.
Subhagi reaches Zanzibar and begins to enquire about Akeel but no one
talks about him with her. She sits down on a couch and keeps pressing the couch
in nervousness. One of the waitresses observes her and tells her that her actions
match to those of another woman who recently visited a guy named Rambo. Subhagi
further enquires about Rambo and the waitress just tells her that he comes every day around 7 pm and ‘picks’ up girls from the bar and sells them after
drugging them. Also, he arranges for donors for an illegal organ transplant. She
shows the waitress the picture of Akeel and she tells her that it is Rambo.
Listening to this, Subhagi is disheartened and pleads that Pia is safe.
Around 7pm, Subhagi sees Akeel entering but waits for the waitress to
signal to approach. She approaches Akeel and begs to know about the location of
Reshma to which he says that he has no idea and had come to her a few months ago
asking to be a liver donor for earning some money as she was in desperate need
so that was why she used to take her every day for 4 hours for medication once
she had agreed to sell herself every day.
He also states that she met him and claimed that everything was fine and
she would lead a happy life soon. Akeel pities Subhagi and offers her a picture
that fell from Reshma’s purse one day during her medication and hands over to
Subhagi. Subhagi notices Reshma with a baby in the photo.
Behind the photograph, Subhagi observes a name ‘Maaya Studios’ and
decides to trace it. She reaches Meher Studios which is renamed to ‘Maaya Colour Labs’ and as soon as she gets off the car, she hears Pia’s cry for her
mom. She runs in the direction of the voice and reaches an abandoned shop where
she sees all bloodshed- Reshma dead, Bina Dead, Kanishk dead and Pia crying
with her face covered with blood.
Subhagi shrieks and wakes up realising it was just a dream and that it is morning and the shop was open. She goes onto see that her phone had missed calls of Dev and Kanishk and she ignores all of them thinking that she has to find Pia all by herself.
Meanwhile, Dev reaches Zanzibar and is waiting for Akeel. The waitress
tells them about Subhagi’s appearance and that she met Akeel and left with some
photographs. Dev and others are now clueless whom to follow and so decide to
trace Subhagi’s phone location.
At the photo studio, the owner tells that he had clicked that photo a
few weeks ago and particularly remembers because that lady in the
picture(Reshma) was extremely possessive about the baby and didn’t even let the
baby interact with him when at the studio and in fact scratched him when he tried to touch the baby. From his records,
he gives the address and the phone number to Subhagi and she leaves.
Upon reaching the place given to her by the owner, Subhagi is greeted by
an empty old house. She enters the house to see that there is nothing but just
a photo of a pregnant Reshma, a man and an old woman. She comes out of the
house with the picture only to be greeted by Reshma’s neighbour who details her
about the incidents. She narrates that Reshma was pregnant when she shifted in
this place with her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law used to constantly nag her
for not working and making excuses and a poor and disheartened Reshma used to
find solace in her neighbour. Her husband had died leaving her with their only
child and a mother-in-law to nag. She could not work because of her condition
and her mother in law refused to work. Subhagi then enquires about the money to
which she replies “An old lady used to come there every week, meet Reshma’s
mother in law, give her a bundle of cash and leave. That lady was quite rich as she always came
in a big car and used to meet Reshma’s mother in law and leave. Whenever she
was in the house Reshma was not allowed to enter. A few days after shifting,
Reshma went into labour and it was her neighbour and her husband who took her
to the hospital and stood by her. Since Reshma gave birth to a girl, her mother
in law disowned them and her neighbour welcomed her to stay. But in a day or
two, Reshma’s daughter fell seriously ill and they took her to the hospital and
gave her some money for hospital expense. But the next day when we went to see
her, both Reshma and her daughter were missing.”
Subhagi reaches and realises that the hospital Reshma went to was none
other than her husband’s workplace. She straight away rams into her husband’s
chamber and accuses him of kidnapping Pia. Her husband dismisses her
allegations as false and baseless and calls up Dev. Dev arrives there and
listens to both Subhagi and Kanishk’s story and believes that both of them are
right. Dev decides to investigate the hospital staff and finds out that Reshma
did come with a baby girl as the baby was suffering from Hepatitis and had
damaged her liver but within 2 days of her admission Reshma’s daughter was
discharged due to her lack of funds.
Subhagi and Dev now are able to connect the dots and realise that
Reshma’s stint with Akeel and her time at the brothel was simply because she
needed money for her child’s treatment. But Subhagi fails to understand that
why would she kidnap Pia. Subhagi suddenly realizes that around the same time
Pia was suffering from pneumonia and she had asked Kanishk to get Pia a bed as
the hospital was running to full occupancy. Dev realizes and immediately calls
in for the records of who was admitted after Reshma’s daughter on the bed and
it is found out that it was Pia, who was given the bed. A nurse steps in and
tells the trio that after being discharged from the hospital Reshma did return
with her daughter who was dead by the time she returned. She goes onto say that
Reshma did not weep once beholding the sight of her dead daughter in her hands
and quietly left. Dev then asserts that Reshma took note of all the things,
earned a little money and presented herself as a nanny to Meeta who introduced
her to Subhagi but the question still lingers, “Why Pia?”.
That night Subhagi returns home, goes to Pia’s cradle and wears the blanket around her which she was made by Reshma in the love of Pia and starts
sobbing bitterly. A hand wavers over her head and it is that of her
mother-in-law who apologises to her for all the trouble caused and promises her
that she would never separate Pia and her and instead would ask Kanishk to
revoke their divorce. In the flashback, we see that the woman who used to give
money to Reshma’s mother in law was none other than Bina who did it because
Reshma’s mother in law was a worker at Bina’s house in the early years and had
built a rapport with her and also she became Bina’s confidante which Reshma’s
mother in law benefitted by blackmailing Bina later on.
The story shifts to the present day where Dev trusting his instincts and
believing them calls in Akeel for interrogation. After some rigidity, Akeel
reveals that he did Reshma and Pia after Reshma kidnapped her and was
absconding. He goes onto tell that he condemned Reshma’s moves who replied,
“It’s not wrong to take back your own child and leave.” He then tells her that
he had fallen in love with her so he was willing to do anything and that she
asked him to get her mother in law killed. He had also made passports for
Reshma and the baby to leave on a ferry to Colombo. Rest he did not know about.
Fearing that Reshma would be leaving the country that very day, Subhagi,
Dev and Bina race towards the ferry bound to leave and start searching for Reshma.
Subhagi spots Reshma near the deck and approaches her. Reshma then threatens
that she will jump into the water if they don’t stop. She then says that her
daughter was innocent and as a mother she did go to extents to protect her
daughter but no one helped her so she was running away from them with ‘her’
daughter and no one had the right to stop her.
From behind Dev calls out to her and tries to reassure that it is not
her daughter she is holding. Subhagi breaks down and requests Reshma to hand
over her daughter. Reshma stays still for some time and sees the baby’s face and
hands her over to Subhagi and snatches the quilt which she says was meant for
her daughter but then gifted it to Pia believing that Pia could survive only
after her daughter died. Saying this she
jumps into the water and engulfs the quilt tightly, she suddenly feels being
caught only to find that Subhagi had jumped after her to prevent her from dying
but Reshma forcefully let goes of Subhagi’s help and goes down into the deep
waters.
Subhagi then wakes up in the hospital with Kanishk on one of her side and Pia on the other. She sees Bina
smiling commandingly right in front of her. Kanishk apologises and asks Subhagi
to remarry her which she defers it. Bina says that Subhagi was indeed ‘Subhag’(destined
for good) to have a second chance with her family, unlike Reshma who got none
and walks off.
Intended Cast:
Subhagi: Vidya Balan
Reshma: Alia Bhatt
Dev: Vicky Kaushal
Kanishk: Deepak Tijori
Bina: Swaroop Sampat
Rambo/Akeel: Tahir Raj Bhasin
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