Not exactly. Chanu is not a hateful man. He is not a fountain of warmth and understanding and has few insights into his wife, but he is an earnest citizen, a hard worker, and there is sometimes a twinkle in his eye. He likes to sing little songs to himself. The two have three children; their first, a son, is a victim of crib death. The next two are daughters, Shahana (Naeema Begum) and Bibi (Lana Rahman). Time passes. Sex for Nazneen is a matter of closing her eyes and dreaming of her village back home, and the sister who regularly sends her letters.
Her husband is so unwise as to take loans from the usurer who works their council flat in East London; these loans apparently can never quite be repaid, and delay their dream of returning "home." Meanwhile, Chanu pursues his dream of becoming a properly educated Brit, which for him means familiarity with Thackeray, Hume and other authors not much read anymore, alas, by Brits. He dreams such knowledge will win him a promotion at work, but it doesn't; he loses his job and starts working as a minicab driver. And Nazneen does what other women in public housing do; she buys a sewing machine and does piecework, finishing blue jeans.
That's how Karim (Christopher Simpson) comes into her life -- young, handsome, charming, the delivery man for the unfinished jeans. Yes, they fall in love, have sex, talk of her divorce and their marriage. Chanu walks into the flat at times when he must be blind not to understand what's happening but he doesn't, or at least he doesn't say anything; his method is to remain jolly at all times, as if everything's fine. The performance by Kaushik makes him almost impossible to dislike, although he's no doubt an ordeal to live with.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46bqaKbm2K5orrEZmlpaGg%3D