Kajol on ‘Lust Stories 2’ and ‘running around trees no more’

Kajol headlines ‘Lust Stories 2’ and the forthcoming ‘The Trial’ on streaming

The edgiest scene in Lust Stories (2018) has Megha (Kiara Advani) caught in an inopportune moment of pleasure as the theme of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… crescendos purposefully in the background.

We ask Kajol — who starred in the generation-defining 2001 film, and who headlines, 22 years later, the sequel to Lust Stories — what she made of the comically subversive scene. “I have not seen Lust Stories 1,” Kajol confesses, a bit startled, withering into peals of laughter on being filled in. “But I will be having a conversation with Karan Johar about it.”

Kajol stars in director Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s segment in Lust Stories 2. Shot in Datia, Madhya Pradesh, it is a dark-ish exploration of family, fidelity, and parenthood. The other films in the anthology — directed by Konkona Sen Sharma, Sujoy Ghosh and R Balki — also wrestle with themes of lust and desire, class and compatibility.

These were concerns also embedded in the first instalment, directed by Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, and Anurag Kashyap. As a whole, Lust Stories represents a rare IP in the Indian cinematic landscape: playful, snackable shorts with top stars and big directors, yet poking into the messier terrains of Indian sexuality.

Kajol in ‘Lust Stories 2’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix

“The film presents four completely different points of view on what lust actually means,” Kajol says. “In all societies, the word is associated with sex of some kind. But these films always leave a question mark hanging. You are left thinking, hey, could this be right? Could it be wrong? What is your idea of right and wrong?”

In her short, Kajol is a mother stuck in a loveless marriage in a large house. Her husband, played by Kumud Mishra, compulsively lusts after the maid. Given that he had hauntingly played a deviant father in his breakout role in That Girl in Yellow Boots (2010), and more recently turned up as a wise sexologist in the web show Dr. Arora (2022), we ask the mild-mannered Mishra why filmmakers view him as a symbol of carnality.

“These are all different characters except that one operative word,” Mishra says, curbing a smile. He then holds forth on the role of cinema and entertainment in promoting openness and sexual literacy. “Indian society historically has always been very open,” Mishra says. “Then a time came when we started repressing ourselves. Our education systems did not evolve; we were afraid to utter even the word sex. That phase too is now changing. And while it is not the job of art to enlighten society, it has always played a role in starting conversations.”

Kumud Mishra in ‘Lust Stories 2’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix

“All of this has to be normalised,” Kajol chimes in. She marks out the current generation, the Gen Zs and Gen Alphas, as far more mature in their outlook towards sex and procreation. “Somewhere down the line progress has happened because everybody is beginning to see the world as they see it.”

Director Amit Sharma relates an insight he received while doing focus-group screenings for his 2018 film Badhaai Ho. The film — a blockbuster comedy starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao — was about a son’s discomfiture when he discovers that his middle-aged parents are expecting again.

The agency that did the focus-group surveys predicted slim collections in conservative small towns like Ahmedabad, Sharma shares. “They told me that people were reluctant to watch the film with their parents. Yet, when it actually came out, Ahmedabad was number one in collections.”

Once the biggest of mainstream draws, Kajol says she has been enjoying her current run on streaming. Before Lust Stories 2, she fronted the Netflix family drama Tribhanga; there was also the viral short film Devi on YouTube. There is yet more to come: The Trial, a courtroom drama series headlined by Kajol and adapted from the Julianna Margulies-led The Good Wife, drops on Disney+ Hotstar in July.

“We are in a fabulous phase now where it does not matter what your chest measurements are or whether your nose is the perfect size,” Kajol says. “I love where I am today as an actor. Don’t want to be running around trees no more.”