Movie: Dhak Dhak 
U/A: Drama, adventure
Dir: Tarun Dudeja
Cast: Fatima Sana Shaikh, Dia Mirza, Ratna Pathak Shah, Sanjana Sanghi
Rating: 4/5

In last Friday’s release, a girl found her happily-ever-after in the middle of a night spent at a Delhi hotel. In yesterday’s offering, four women found their joy, and themselves, in the rough terrains of Leh-Ladakh. It is rather unbelievable that Bollywood has offered two back-to-back unabashedly feminist films that challenge the homogeneity that we often restrict womanhood to. 

Debutant director Tanuj Dudeja’s Dhak Dhak is your favourite comforter that feels only warmer as it ages. At its heart, it is a story that says there’s no age to coming of age. You could be a young YouTube content creator Sky, fighting for her identity (Fatima Sana Shaikh), an even younger girl Manjari, who hardly knows a word beyond “mummy” (Sanjana Sanghi), a middle-aged homemaker Uzma, who exchanged independence for love (Dia Mirza), or a 60-year-old Manpreet aka Mahi wanting to be more than a mother (Ratna Pathak Shah). One thing binds them all—a motorcycle. A vehicle that has been historically employed as a cool extension of masculinity, and one that women are at the most only allowed to ride pillion on.