‘Thursday Special’ Short Film Review: Eat, Sleep, Grieve, Repeat

A woman sees her husband walking out of a place she isn’t familiar with. It’s lunch hour; he was supposed to be in his office. He looks suspiciously satisfied. Little does he know that he’s been spotted cheating in broad daylight. When she checks at his workplace next afternoon, her worst fears are confirmed. He has in fact been unfaithful. This is a routine for years, she’s told. So she decides to catch him red-handed. Quiet hell will break loose when he goes home that evening. She confronts him. He hangs his head in shame. The actors are affecting. It’s a sobering moment: an inflection point in their long-standing marriage.  

But Varun Tandon’s 26-minute film, Thursday Special, is defined by the context of this sequence. It does not exist in isolation, just like the idea of companionship itself. Here’s how the moment really reads. Ram (Ramakant Daayama) and Shakuntala (Anubha Fatehpuria) are an elderly couple. She’s a homemaker; he has a government job. They’ve been married for decades. They have a sweet Thursday ritual — she delights in preparing something special for his office potluck lunch. She wakes up at the crack of dawn, cooks all morning, packs his tiffin with a surprise dish, and waits for the inevitable compliments once he returns in the evening. You could say they are united by food, but they are actually united by something less tangible: grief. They lost their kids a while ago; this weekly ritual offers them one day of respite and tiny joys in a life bent by tragedy. So when Shakuntala sees Ram walk out of a place, the place is a local restaurant. He’s being unfaithful: by indulging in his favourite masala fish fry every Thursday. Much to her shock, the tiffin she packs is distributed among security guards. Her face falls when their eyes meet. It says something that not once does she assume he’s meeting another woman; she knows immediately that it’s another...dish. It’s the worst kind of infidelity.  

The film-making of Thursday Special is more compelling than the storytelling. The postcard-like aspect ratio and colour grading makes the couple look like they’re trapped in society’s perception of a traditional marriage. Their life looks a little brighter on screen, almost as if they can’t afford to express their loneliness beyond the walls of their house. There’s enough subtext in the images and pauses and gestures, so the few clunky exposition scenes stick out like a sore thumb. Like early on, when Ram explicitly mentions that “it feels like just yesterday they died in the accident” before leaving for office. Given the mundanity of the moment, there are smarter ways to convey this information. Ditto for when he explains himself later; he spells out their situation and his intentions, leaving nothing for the viewer to decode. As a great man once sang: A little less conversation, a little more action. Perhaps that’s the nature of the mainstream beast, even if it’s a nicely staged short meant for more than public consumption.  

That said, I can imagine many shorts on the same theme — an Indian husband sheepishly food-cheating on his wife — unfolding as a small-town comic genre. The one-liner does sound funny. It lends itself to some quirk (a playful Chopin piece hints at this). But I like that Thursday Special cuts beyond the easy hook and reaches for gravity. It doesn’t shy away from feelings most families are conditioned to avoid. The treatment is slice-of-life without being heavy. It is said that there’s no greater pain than the pain of losing a child. The film chooses a difficult emotion — grief — that’s also ritualistic in nature. And the story is designed to suggest that even its coping mechanisms are ritualistic. Loss is etched on their faces. The man is more functional because living offers him no choice. The machinations of middle-class survival don’t allow for luxuries like closure and catharsis. He keeps himself busy, and feels like an ordinary guy — not a father, not a husband — when he digs into that fish every Thursday. 

But the woman is imprisoned by time and tide. She spends millions of seconds with herself, with no routine beyond cooking and thinking and the empty void of memories. Thursday is her escape. It’s a drill that connects her to the outside world, even if it’s to hear the (fictional) praise for her food. Anubha Fatehpuria internalises the slow-burning paralysis of longing; you can see the toll of heartbreak in her dark circles and withered voice. It’s an exceptional performance. The final moments of Thursday Special are hopeful and sobering; a page is turned for both better and worse. It’s fitting that the 60-something couple seeks refuge not so much in communication and community but instead in silent familiarity: food, domesticity, care, habits, white lies. It’s their way of sharing the burden without really sharing it. It’s also their way of being together while being alone.