The film that had a lot of potential, but what’s missing is the ‘woh wali baat’. Rahul’s performance warms up at the start, but his expressions soon get repetitive, and Tara can’t juice the plot that runs dry. As turbulence hits his personal life, Rajaram decides to pen down a letter to Madhu, calling it quits. The story lacks stamina, and the background music drags the plot. Sonu Ka Joban: With Tara-Alisha Berry, Rani Chatterjee, Aakash Dabhade, Anshuman Jha. The problem is the storytelling that’s languid and uninventive for a subject so explorative.

It’s about the psyche and dilemma of a writer torn apart between art and erotica.

Even the typography of the title symbolizes a male organ, but the film is far from pornographic. Jaiswal’s premise is different and daring he bares the hypocrisies of a society that shames, silences and devours sex – all in the same breath (ahh!). But what happens when the covers are pulled off his identity and he’s exposed as the man who sells sexual fantasies for a living? His lurid stories (‘Baniye Ka Lollipop’, ‘Sheela Ka Yowan’) discreetly called ‘woh-wali kitaab’ becomes a best-seller. Realizing that sex sells like hot samosas and lust ‘whets’ hungry minds over literature, the struggling Premchand in him begins churning out porn-packed in-paperbacks, under the pseudonym of ‘Mastram’. He finds support only in his sanskari wife (Tara), and even after desperate attempts, all publishers reject his literary work because his kahanis have the matter but lack the ‘meat’. Rajaram (Rahul), a M.A in Hindi, quits his bank job in Manali to pursue his dream of being a novelist.

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