The Things That Men Do is the first episode of the first season of the Hindi crime thriller series Undekhi.
Summary
Rishi, Saloni, and a team of filmmakers arrive at Manali to shoot Sonali’s friend Teji’s wedding to Daman, who comes from an influential family. Rishi manages to accidentally record Daman’s father shooting a dancer during a party and struggles to decide what he should do with the recording. In another part of the country, DSP Ghosh is looking for those dancers related to another murder that happened in West Bengal and ends up in Manali in search of them.
Extended Plot
The first episode of Undekhi Season 1 starts in Sundarbans with DSP Ghosh investigating a dead body of a person who was murdered and then left in the forest. The murder weapon is found to be a long wooden hairpin that tribal girls usually use. Then an officer informs DSP Ghosh that from the day of the murder, two girls from the tribal village near the spot of the crime had been missing, and the villagers have informed that the two girls were dancers and they had gone to Manali to perform.
Then two dancers, who are sisters, are shown on a bus that is standing at a bus stop. They were alone and then approached by police officers and asked uncomfortable questions. On finding out that they are dancers going to Manali to perform, he forces the two girls to dance in front of them but pauses when a group of filmmakers enters the bus, who are also going to Manali for a wedding shoot.
Rishi, Sonali, and the team get on that bus to Manali. The wedding photography and video team for the wedding of Teji and Dhaman. Dhaman’s family is rich and influential in Manali, and the wedding is quite grand. At first, the team shoots some of the members of the family, and Teji, the bride, is introduced. Teji also seems to be Sonali’s friend. Teji, when asked about where Daman and the men of the family were, says that they have a separate event for the day, and they will be celebrating among themselves.
Rishi is unhappy to shoot wedding videos after putting the effort to study films and Sonali, in turn, says that at least they are getting paid, and that’s what’s important. Their conversations are interrupted by some male relatives of Daman’s. They ask for a video maker, and when Sonali offers, they are told that no women are allowed and insist on taking Rishi with them. Rishi is then taken to a garden party with several men around dancing. Rishi is escorted to Rinku, Daman’s brother, and convinced to shoot the party even if it wasn’t part of the deal made earlier. Rishi looks around to shoot just to find two dancers from the bus performing in front of a crowd of me. He feels uncomfortable, but he starts to record the party anyway. When his camera’s memory card runs out, he changes it and keeps recording. Daman and Rinku’s father, completely drunk, approaches one of the girls, touching her inappropriately and saying he wanted the girl. When the girl keeps dancing, he suddenly takes out a gun and shoots her in the head. While Daman is panicking, trying to take away his father from the party, Rinku pretends that the girl will be fine and calls an ambulance to carry the dancer’s body. The other girl is told that her sister will be fine, and she is told to keep dancing. Daman takes his father to his room and takes away the gun that his father used to shoot the girl away from him. When he asks his brother Rinku if their father is going to face the consequences, Rinku promises to take care of it all.
Rinku, amidst the actions, sneaks back to Sonali and tells her what happened. Sonali warns him not to tell anyone the events of the night because if they spill their guts to the police, these people would shoot them as well. Later Rishi realizes that he has the recording of the crime and tries to upload the file from the SD card to his laptop. But Rinku comes to his room and demands to see what was recorded. Rishi throws away the memory card with the recording of the shooting before Rinku enters and shows him only the full memory card that didn’t have the recording.
DSP Ghosh travels to Manali at night to solve the mystery of the two missing dancers. In the morning, at the wedding in Manali, Rishi asks one of the men if the dancer is okay, and he is told that she is fine and has left Manali. Daman’s father tells Rishi to take pictures of a young woman he finds attractive and to send the pictures in private. Rishi, disgusted by this, runs into the woods nearby only to find a small hut, and inside he sees one of the dancers and the man accompanying them kept in a cage by some of the goons.
Famous Dialogues
“I dreamt of being the next Nolan” – Rishi, contemplating his career decision of doing wedding shoots after studying in a film school.
“I really don’t have that kind of time. A lot can change in seven to eight hours.” – DPS Ghosh when telling the taxi driver why he needed to reach Manali as soon as possible.
Cast and Crew
Cast: Harsh Chhaya, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Abhishek Chauhan, Surya Sharma, Ankur Rathee, Anchal Singh, Any Zoya, Apeksha Porwal, Vaarun Bhagat, Uttam Halder, Sayandeep Sen.
Director: Ashish R. Shukla
Writers: Varun Badola, Umesh Padalkar, Siddharth Sengupta.