It’s interesting to see women directors in India pushing the envelope to explore themes. After we had Farah Khan doing a ‘boys’ film (Main Hoon Na), the following year, Vinta Nanda, a past master at TV soaps, turned the tables on the macho brigade in Bollywood by doing the kind of angst-laden film on suburban paranoia that would normally go to a male director like Mahesh Bhatt.

White Noise is Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth without the comfort of distance. Nanda plunges right into the centre of her protagonist’s anguished universe. Her first-hand experiences in the TV industry, her despair at getting caught up in the mediocrity and morass of the Great Indian Soap Trick, and most importantly, her acerbic study of promiscuous, easy-flowing relationships in showbiz are given a peculiarly pungent treatment in her debut spin.

By a stroke of luck, Nanda has got a relatively untried but...