Thursday Special review: A short film that mourns the grief hidden within life’s mundanity!

Varun Tandon’s Thursday Special is a 27-minute short film that gently reminds us how, in the rinse-and-repeat rhythm of everyday life, we often forget the most important act of all - living. 

Our days unfold in familiar patterns of waking up, brushing, bathing, eating, working, sleeping, and starting over. From the moment we open our eyes, we see the world every day almost through the same lens with the same road, the same office, the same files until routine feels etched into our very DNA. And then, sometimes, the smallest disruption like a different turn on a familiar street or a new meal on the plate becomes something to look forward to. That quiet longing for novelty, for meaning, is exactly what Thursday Specialexplores.

The film follows an elderly couple, Ram (Ramakant Daayama) and Shakuntala (Anubha Fatehpuria), whose lives are steeped in monotony and unspoken grief. Shakuntala is firmly settled into the rhythms of being a housewife, with Thursdays standing out as her one cherished ritual of waking up at dawn to cook a special meal for her husband’s office potluck. Ram, too, looks forward to Thursdays, but for a different reason altogether as he eats a fish masala fry every week at a local joint. A secret he has kept from his wife for years.

On the surface, the conflict seems almost simple, even amusing. A wife pours love into her cooking, only to discover that her husband gives her lovingly packed lunch to security guards and eats outside instead. The idea of being “cheated on with food” even carries a certain humour. But the film quickly reveals that the hurt runs far deeper than uneaten food, especially when Ram is caught red-handed. What wounds Shakuntala is not Ram’s craving for fish, but the lie itself. Those years of deception feels heavier particularly when their shared life is already weighed down by the devastating loss of their children, who died in an accident when they were mere children.

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Then Thursday, for Shakuntala, had become a symbol of purpose, care, and anticipation. Ram’s secret Thursday ritual shatters that fragile meaning. And yet, the film refuses to villainise him. It slowly unfolds Ram’s truth as well that his weekly fish fry is not an act of betrayal, but an escape from grief, from sameness, from the quiet ache of a life with very little left to look forward to. He simply wanted something to hope for. Something that tasted like life. Something that Ramakant Daayama’s performance says with utmost precision as the moment the first bite of fish touches his tongue, his face softens into something close to joy, almost guilty pleasure. In contrast, Anubha Fatehpuria brings quiet devastation to Shakuntala as her questions are heavy not with anger, but with hurt and disbelief. Her pain lies in wondering why, after everything they have endured together, honesty became optional.

Shot in a grainy, photo-album-like aspect ratio that feels like flipping through fading memories, Varun Tandon's Thursday Special lingers long after it ends. What stays with you most is its final note is that both Ram and Shakuntala realise they were trying to make their Thursdays special in their own way - one by cooking, the other by eating, something that they can choose to do together as they do by stepping out together and trying a newly opened joint. The grief doesn’t disappear; it sits beside them, like an old companion that never quite leaves. But there is comfort in choosing togetherness.

The film then becomes a tender reminder that while loss and mundanity may linger longer than we want them to, there is always respite in shared hope, in tasting life again, side by side. Perhaps that is where living truly begins - not in grand reinventions, but in the simple, stubborn act of trying, hoping, and choosing each other again.

Presented by Shoojit Sircar and Vikramaditya Motwane, Thursday Special is streaming on Humans of Cinema's YouTube Channel!

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