The school-goers of the 90’s era who loved munching Uncle Chips every now and then, Nicholas Kharkongor’s ‘Mantra’ will bring smile on their faces. Set under the backdrop of India during the post liberalization and globalization era, ‘Mantra’ is a story never told before. It is based on the actual incidents of the demise of the most famous Uncle Chips which was acquired by Frito Lays during the year 2004. The film is about a wealthy business family of Kapil Kapoor aka. KK (Rajat Kapoor) who owns the big market with his old setup company ‘King Chips’. But, his company is heading towards bankruptcy when a new global player ‘Kipper Chips’ comes into India because of globalization. On the other hand, his elder son Viraj Kapoor (Shiv Pandit) wants to rope-in some investors to start-up his own restaurant which isn’t approved by his dad. Also, KK’s daughter Piya (Kalki Koechlin) wants to live her life in her own terms which may take her away from the family. Seeing all of this, KK’s wife Minakshi (Lushin Dubey) is depressed and unhappy. The youngest son Vir (Rohan Joshi) is occupied in his own virtual dreamy world. But amongst all of this chaos, KK has to keep his calm and think about saving his business as well as his own dysfunctional family. The film will move you completely and is a near-perfect portrayal of those days. But, it has its own bunch of flaws too. You would expect for more screen space in the film and might get confused with so many plots. Mantra will give you a feel of a short story rather than a mainstream commercial cinema. Do go for the film if you are looking for a newness amongst the regular entertainment genres and want to relive those 90’s days.

On the radio, ’90s music now passes for retro. Ripped jeans are back in fashion. All these years later, the jingle ‘Bole mere lips…’ still calls to mind the distinctive taste of papri chaat Uncle Chipps wafers. On the face of it, director Nicholas Kharkongor’s crowd-funded debut film, Mantra, documents the demise of this once-popular brand: the multinational Frito-Lay acquired Uncle Chipps in 2000. But what it effectively seeks to do is document this critical time, and the long-drawn effects of the economic liberalisation that began in 1991. There are similar nods to red-tapism in business, to the minister-businessman nexus, and the rise of the extreme right wing. In that, Mantra ticks all the boxes, and touches upon crucial issues that defined the period. But the links are weak, and the subplots episodic. You end up wishing more screen time had been dedicated to the smaller, more relatable stories. Nostalgia is eternally beautiful because memory is so selective. Mantra is worth watching if only to be able to be able to look back at that period – the 1990s to the early 2000s – and remember what it was really like.

The year is 2004. A wealthy businessman who lives in Delhi with this family — well-preserved wife, three children — is facing bankruptcy. In some quarters in the Capital of India, the fruits of economic liberalization are being gobbled up; in others, they are pure poison: Mantra is about these people, their rocky lives, and that time. First time director Kharkongor succeeds in giving us snapshots of a few sections of the city: the fat-cats who rule India, the children of privilege who fatten on old wealth, and, in a brief, telling glimpse, of those who fetch up here because there’s nothing in the villages they left behind. Rajat Kapoor delivers a stand-out performance as a man struggling in the changing economic scenario but is failed by the uneven film. But Mantra is marred by its static delivery of the mostly-in-English lines. And the several banal observations strewn through it. ‘You have to suck up to the system’, says a character. ‘That’s how things work’. It isn’t, unfortunately, how films spring to vivid, complex life.

It's the year 2004 and India is shining like the sun as far as the economy is concerned, yet all is not well with Kapil Kapoor, the Delhi-based proprietor of King Chips. The multinationals are buying out the market as he fights, what seems like a losing battle, to save his company. It's refreshing to see, that in a film only 90 minutes long, just how the director manages to narrate multiple stories in an effective and engaging manner. Each character, however brief, is cast perfectly. Rajat Kapoor's role as the stoic father struggling to do the right thing, Shiv Pandit as the angry son with his own battles to fight, and even Adil Hussain's heart-warming cameo, stand out. The film is more a collection of anecdotes which reflect a dysfunctional family fighting to stay afloat amidst the chaos that life in urban India is. A crowd funded effort, Mantra is a brave film that delves into the complex world of urban relationships and poses the right questions. In a bid to cover all bases, the film does fall short in reaching a clear conclusion and the execution falls short in places. Still, the story and performances make sure you are involved till the very end.