Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh

Plot

Vidya Sinha (Vidya Balan) is a middle-class working mother who lives in Chandan Nagar, West Bengal with her teenage daughter Minnie (Tunisha Sharma), who is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair. However, Minnie is a happy child and Vidya dotes on her, working hard to save money so that she can take Minnie to America in the hope that the girl will walk again. Vidya has resumed writing a personal diary after a long gap of eight years.

One day, Vidya is forced to leave Mini home alone and unattended after waking up late. When she reaches work, she confirms through mobile that the nurse has arrived to look after Mini. When she returns home in the evening, her daughter is missing. A distraught Vidya finds out that the nurse hadn't come because she received a phone call from someone (pretending to be Vidya), telling her not to come. Vidya then receives a call from an unknown woman asking her to come to an address if she does not want to see Mini dead. When she attempts to cross the road, a taxi knocks her down, sending her into a coma. She is admitted by the taxi-driver into a local nursing home of Dr. Maity (Pradip Mukherjee). A sub-inspector, Inderjeet Singh (Arjun Rampal) is put on Vidya's case. He visits the nursing home to see Vidya in coma. He gets a rude shock when he sees Vidya, as her face resembles that of Durga Rani Singh, whom he had known. He visits Vidya's home and finds her diary, which he takes in his custody to go through. Inderjeet's senior, Pranab Halder (Kharaj Mukherjee), informs him that Durga is wanted for a kidnapping and murder case. Inderjeet's wife Rashmi (Manini Chadha), a homemaker and mother of their daughter hasn't yet warmed up to Chandan Nagar and keeps asking him to take transfer to Kolkata. Inderjeet assures her that he is investigating a case and there is nothing personal.

As Inderjeet starts reading Durga's diary, her past is revealed. She worked as a clerk in a school in Kalimpong as Durga Rani Singh. She is friendly with Arun (Tota Roychoudhury and it's obvious that Arun has feelings for her. Durga is interested in a future with Arun too, but something from her own past still haunts her. At school, she noticed that a student named Minnie Dewan (Naisha Khanna) was always punished for sleeping during classes. When after repeated attempts at befriending reclusive Minnie fail, Durga decides to visit Minnie's grandmother (Amba Sanyal), pretending to be a teacher. She offers private tuition to spend time and get close to Minnie. She gradually wins Minnie's confidence. Durga's worst fears come true when Minnie confides that her uncle Mohit Dewan (Jugal Hansraj) was sexually abusing her. It is now clear from Durga's was also a survivior of child sex abuse and she informs Minnie's grandmother but she disbelieves Durga and admonishes her and fires her from the tuition job for Minnie. He is offered a job abroad and wishes to take her with him.Durga challenges Minnie's grandmother and Mohit that she would expose Mohit so that he is punished. She tries to file a case against him with the police but the policewoman (Gargi Bharadwaj), taking the side of Minnie's grandmother, thrashes and threatens Durga from pursuing further. Minnie is severely admonished by her grandmother and Mohit for confiding with Durga. She jumps off the terrace in desperation and becomes paralyzed waist down. Durga decides to save Minnie from her family and has a fight with her grandmother, who gets killed accidentally in the incident. Arun tries to locate Durga before his departure but is unable to do so. He dejectedly leaves for abroad. Durga flees with Minnie, settling in Chandan Nagar, with a new name, Vidya Sinha. But Mohit hunts them down and gets Minnie kidnapped with the help of the police woman.

The story then comes back to the present time. The kidnapper policewoman comes to the nursing home and threatens Vidya to pay ransom to save Minnie, who has been kidnapped by Mohit and her. She throttles the patient on the next bed to death before leaving to emphasize that she means business. Terrified Vidya escapes from the hospital after recovering from coma and goes back to home in search of the address that the kidnapper had asked her to come to. She is caught by Halder and Inderjeet at her home. However, she is successful in escaping from there, as she shoots Inderjeet in his right arm. Vidya then arrives at Kolkata, where she goes to docks area as asked by Mohit and the woman kidnapper. Here Vidya offers the money withdrawn from her account to pay ransom to the kidnapper woman. Mohit shoots her dead when he finds her attracted to get the ransom offered. He then tries to kill Vidya, but he is shot dead by Minnie. Vidya then calls Inderjeet to seek his help, but Haldar and other police officer ask Inderjeet to call her to a place where they can arrest her, as she is a criminal. Inderjeet asks Vidya to come to his paternal house, where they are surrounded by the police force. Halder tries to come near to Vidya, but she shoots him on his leg. Later, she pours kerosene oil and leaks the gas from cylinder in order to blast the house (in order to kill everybody inside the house). But when, Halder asks for mercy from her on the behalf of his 8 year-old child, she allows him and Inderjeet to walk out of the house. Few minutes later, the house gets blasted. In the next scene, it is seen that Halder comes out of the police headquarters as he has got promotion along with Inderjeet. Then his wife Rashmi informs him that she has now started liking Chandan Nagar.

It is finally revealed that Vidya's real name is Durga Rani Singh and she was married to Inderjeet Singh at a very young age. Durga after recovering from coma asked Inderjeet for his help and they planned her escape. It was Inderjeet, who helped Durga in arranging fake passports (in the name of Vidya Sinha) for her and for her daughter. He helped her in escaping to Kolkata in the police Ambassador car, inside the car trunk. Finally, he helped her from escaping from the house which got blasted.

It is seen that Durga is alive, (who is believed to be dead as a criminal by police department) and is traveling to New York City for Minnie's operation. They arrive at the Children's Hospital. Inderjeet is seen happily driving with his family. The film ends with Durga assuring Minnie – ‛As long as I am alive, nothing can happen to you’.

Cast

Sarthak Dey Sarkar as guest apperance (Child).

Production

In March 2012, Sujoy announced that he intended to develop Kahaani into a series. He was inspired by Satyajit Ray's Feluda detective series and wanted to continue the stories of Vidya Bagchi on similar lines, with Vidya Balan reprising the role. The shooting of Kahaani 2 was scheduled to begin in 2013, but in July 2013 differences arose between Sujoy Ghosh and other co-producers. In February 2014, Vidya announced that the film was not happening due to these differences, but two years later, Ghosh confirmed that the film was in pre-production with Vidya set to reprise her role. The film, titled Kahaani 2, began filming in March 2016 with Arjun Rampal and Vidya in lead roles.

In October 2016, upon its teaser release, the film was renamed as Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh. Initially, Durga Rani Singh was intended to be a standalone film with actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, but, as the story is too similar to Kahaani franchise, makers has included the project as a sequel to Kahaani.

It was later revealed by Balan and Ghosh that, this film is not a sequel to Kahaani released in 2012, but a next installment of Kahaani franchise.

Critical reception

Hindustan Times gave the film 4 stars out of five. The Times of India gave the film 3 and half stars out of five. India Today gave the film 2 and half stars out of five. The Indian Express gave the film 2 stars out of five. Firstpost gave the film 2 stars out of five.

Box office

On its first day the film collected ₹4.25 crore from India, and on its opening weekend the film collected ₹16.97 crore.

Soundtrack

The music of this film has been composed by Clinton Cerejo.

All lyrics written by Amitabh Bhattacharya; all music composed by Clinton Cerejo.

Award and nominations

Sequel

The producers have confirmed plans to release a sequel of this franchise.