I don’t know if I am old-fashioned about mystery, or a Sherlock-cum-Agatha stalwart, but I prefer clues to be unobtrusive and to keep me guessing. I would rather not know or not expect it to be the person it is, bec of the way the story is told, unfolds and the way the characters are portrayed. Two films that had the potential to be brilliantly mysterious, let me down in that sole respect because we could guess all along that something was rather off with that person: Ishqiya and Karthik Calling Karthik. While each had a trump-card surprise element: a not-so-dead husband; and a phone with unexpected features (which we couldn’t guess through the course of the film, despite the pointers) the two lead characters, Krishna and Karthik respectively, both hinted at something being unnatural about themselves. Karthik was already visiting a shrink and his state of life would logically be bringing his mind to despair; Krishna’s expressions and body language all along suggested that there was something up with her – that she was not all that she seemed to be. So then, if the who was nearly identified, the how and what remained to be discovered. While the latter was executed well, taking the ‘who’ away takes away more than half the fun of a mystery. Understanding what makes people tick is the most interesting quality of a true mystery writer. And giving away the culprit or making the culprit obvious leaves the movie less nuanced and subtle than it should ideally be! Writers Abhishek Chaubey and Vijay Lalwani, in a commendable first effort, have both made the same error in characterization and script-writing. I only hope they keep us guessing a lot more in the future! Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone Essar