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News ‘Yours Truly’: A sincere take on loneliness

MUMBAI: The only cure to old age is death. The only remedy to loneliness during old age is memories, at least for some. Others who prefer to live in the here-and-now may choose to seek reluctant company. There are stories of how veteran actress Nadira would bribe her guests to stay a little longer with drinks.

Violet Stoneham, the character that Jennifer Kapoor played in Aparna Sen’s “36 Chowringhee Lane” allowed a young couple to use her apartment for sex, just so that she would be in company. Creaky bed notwithstanding.

There is a couple making noisy love in “Yours Truly”, though their sounds of passion sound fairly phoney, as though they were faking it just to make the ageing protagonist feel lonelier.

In “Yours Truly”, Soni Razdan playing an autumnal Bengali woman Mithi Kumar in Kolkata, is a direct descendent of Violet Stoneham, though far less intimidated by her solitude.

Mithi is portrayed as a woman of immense dignity. She is extremely private about her aloneness. Writer-director Sanjoy Nag goes to great lengths to show Mithi’s resilient repudiation of self-pity.

Indeed as portrayed with sincere empathy by Soni Razdan, this could have been the