3 Review(s)

‘What are families for?’ ‘. . . they are for offering endless opportunities for emotional blackmail.’ Three generations of a family gather for Cheenu’s last rites. Besides mourning and remembrance, it also becomes an occasion for secrets and grievances to surface. Suri, the joyless, resentful, and rigid patriarch, who sacrificed his dreams in order to take care of the family on the death of his father, admired his brother Cheenu but envied his intellect and popularity. Ravi, Cheenu’s laid-back, drunken doctor nephew, can’t understand the obsession of the upwardly mobile sons-in-law with making money. Paru, the salacious sister-in-law, and the lecherous relative Suresh, dissatisfied with their spouses, seek pleasure in each other. And the cousins—children of the five siblings—argue over the unfair division of the proceeds from the sale of the family house. All are trapped in this web of jealousy, betrayal and pettiness except those like Cheenu and Ravi, Meena and Akhila, who rise above it. Eccentrics and silent rebels, they are proof that happiness and harmony within a family is about forgiveness and generosity. Told with candour, irony, and pathos, through a montage of voices, Sinking, Not Swimming is a sharp take on our world driven by power, money and success.