While the dusty, rocky atmosphere of Annupur in Madhya Pradesh furnishes the narration with that parched realism that the theme needs, it also distances urban audiences who aren't likely to have encountered the world of Mohandas first hand. And they couldn't care less.

The film draws us in, but not enough to take Mohandas' plight home with us. The journalist does take us some way into this dry and gloomy world of arrested development. But after a point we are not really with her.

Also, the film lacks a sense of redemption. The end is bitterly gloomy. Mohandas retires to a remote mountan with his wife (Sharbani Mukherjee).

Worth watching for creating the tormented world of a character who loses the very meaning of his existence.

As Mohandas Nakul delivers a quiet and restrained performance. We never catch him acting. Also effective are Sonali as the television journalist who takes interest in the case only to a point, and Sushant as the unscrupulous man who takes over Mohandas's identity.

Director-cinematographer Kamran's kingdom of the doomed is a tale of defeat. If you're looking for a hero who overcomes all obstacles, 'Mohandas' proves unequal to the task.