Madhya Pradesh is a big state, big enough for its citizens to lose someone. In Kiran Rao’s second full length feature Lost Ladies, that’s exactly what happens to Deepak Kumar (Sparsh Srivastav), who accidentally loses his veiled bride Phool Kumari (Nitanshi Goel) at a train station. He does this because he accidentally grabs the hand of the other veiled bride in their train compartment. That bride calls herself Pushpa (Pratibha Ranta), who tries to get the best out of the situation she’s in.

Lost Ladies‘s B-plot involves Deepak reporting the situation to a police officer Monahar (Ravi Kishan). While Monahar is looking for Phool, she ends up befriending a food vendor, Manju Maai (Chhaya Kadam), who is cynical as Phool is innocent. Innocent ears may not be the best recipients for words of tough love like the ones Manju dish out. But thankfully, Phool learns the right lessons from Manju, as thankfully she sees the value in the skills that her young mind already has.

At this point, I don’t care if Lost Ladies had that one contrivance because of how it quickly fixes it. After two delays, the film is finally coming out to festivals and theatres. If all is fair in this world, this film will into Pratibha Ranta into a star. The film also shows us that there are two powerful entities in this world. The first is a Nokia 5110 and its battery (the film takes place in 2001), and the second are resilient women.