Kho Gaye Hum Kahaan is an addition to a list of movies written by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti that are titled from a phrase used in a song in an earlier movie produced by Excel Entertainment. These titles re-imagine the phrases, expanding on the depth they carry and build it into a legacy of their own. So-much-so, that after a point you forget that you first heard ‘zindagi milegi na dobara’ in the title track of Rock On! and ‘dil dhadakne do’ in a song from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Kho Gaye Hum Kahaan takes its title from a song from the forgettable Baar Baar Dekho (also named after a song from the 1962 China Town, a movie titled reused years later in a Kareena Kapoor Khan-starrer…. sorry, I’m digressing). In that movie, the phrase was used romantically, placed with visuals of two people falling in love as they grew old together. In the Arjun Vairan Singh directorial, the term assumes a deeper meaning, hinting at the addictive relationship the urban young of our country share with social media.
Despite being a movie that often comes with a holier-than-thou attitude, Kho Gaye Hum Kahaan is quite an earnest, empathetic movie. The story follows three childhood friends, Imaad (Siddhanth Chaturvedi) is a stand-up comic, Neil (Adarsh Gourav) is a gym trainer and Ahana (Ananya Panday) is an MBA working at an MNC. She and Imaad are cohabitating, the former is quite regular on dating apps, indulging in swift, harmless flings while Ahana is in a seemingly solid relationship.
Writers Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti use these three characters and their uber Bandra-esque setting to explore the toxic dynamic the youth shares with social media. The most convincing of the lot is Ahana, who after being dumped uses social media to make her ex-boyfriend jealous, faking a happier, hotter life simply to grab the attention of the man who distanced himself from her.
Imaad uses jokes as a coping mechanism, and non-serious relationships to mask the darkest secret of his past. In that sense, his entire life feels like a social media profile. He is not addicted to social media, he has turned his real life into one. Neil is the aspirational one here, wanting to make it big and using social media both, as a means of upping his professional game and also, at an important point in the movie, using it to channelize the most ridiculous side of himself that social media makes easier for anyone to show off.
In a world of violence, patriotism and hyper-masculinity, Kho Gaye Hum Kahaan is a breath of fresh air. It is both a nostalgic piece (reminding you of Akhtar-sibling classics like Dil Chahta Hai and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara) and also a timely, largely intelligent commentary on Gen Z.
It helps that the performances are quite strong here. Adarsh Gourav continues his solid run of form in 2023, while Siddhanth Chaturvedi’s Imaad is a reminder of the kind of prowess he holds as an artist. But the surprise package here is Ananya Panday, standing tall in front of two terrific performers. Her Ahana is vulnerable, vehement, stupid but also real, which ultimately makes you want to be with her through the runtime of the movie. The character, much like Panday’s character in Gehraiyaan, feels like an extension of herself. But maybe we need to recognize the quality of her performance here and not find excuses to shroud a deservingly good performance.
Kho Gaye Hum Kahaan lacks the universality of the earlier friendship-trio movies that have come out of Excel Entertainment, and can get preachy (and it does not have the privilege of Javed Akhrar’s poetry that a Zindagi… had), but the movie does a lot of what recent movies, including Zoya Akhtar’s The Archies could’t do, give us characters we understand, empathize with and end up loving with all their flaws intact.
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