Raajneeti does a White Tiger,kudos!

Raajneeti, the movie, does to Bollywood what Adiga’s Booker-winning “The White Tiger” did to Indian writing in English. It scrapes off of the much-hyped veneer of” India Shining”, showing instead the rotting, bleeding heart of the world’s largest “democracy”. With characters as gleefully amoral as Adiga’s Balram Halwai, Prakash Jha pulls off a coup with a modern-day Mahabharata spiced up with Coppola’s Godfather, making for a compelling and meaningful celluloid experience. Riveting fare.

Part family drama, part mafia war, it is a story teeming with wonderfully imagined characters: a fiery Dalit in Ajay Devgan, a wily opportunist/bloodthirsty Duryodhana in Manoj Bajpayee, an impulsive firebrand in Arjun Rampal, a sardonic Krishna in the inimitable Nana Patekar(he delivers such wry unforgettables as:”In politics, nothing is good or bad, we only work to serve a (Machiavellian)purpose”) and many others besides, and of course Ranbir Kapoor, yes, RANBIR KAPOOR as Bollywood’s Michael Corleone .Anjum Rajabali has written an inspired script, and the inspirations, Mahabharata and The Godfather, write most of the story themselves.However,it is in his interpretation of Ranbir as Arjuna that he steals everyone’s thunder. Not since Saif Ali Khan as Iago in Omkara has Bollywood seen such a virtuoso performance in a negative role, or indeed such a wonderfully conceived negative role. Ranbir is the suave NYU academic, the rookie who ends up learning the trade of realpolitik faster than everyone else. One scene stands out in memory: the conniving Ranbir sits at his Macintosh laptop, lit cigarette in hand, ostensibly at a loss for ideas. The very next day, he murders a former aide, arm-twists the national media to score a major victory for his camp, and offers to marry Katrina in lieu of financial assistance to his party: unleashing one bloody ace after the other with hair-raising aplomb. The female characters add much-needed emotional intensity to this epic narrative, with Katrina going further by doing a Sonia Gandhi at the fag-end of this blockbuster.Naseerudin Shah pitches in with an endearing cameo. The music is paisa vasool (Wayne Sharp delivers a memorable [and poignant] “Mora Piya”); the actors are stylized with the movie in mind (Thankfully! Imagine Ranbir in his trademark pink T’s in this role!!!); the cinematography is top-notch (Sachin Kumar Krishnan's camera creatively zooms both into the political and domestic arena.) and the dialogues are spot on…One heck of a movie, this.

Throughout, the spotlight is on the filth and gore of the Indian democratic set-up. Murders/rapes are de rigueur. Shakespearean mobs act as stand-ins for public opinion. The media is but a plaything, dancing to the tune of blatantly unscrupulous politicians. Law is flouted at the drop of a handkerchief. Katrina’s speech triggers a mandate on the validity of coasting to electoral success on flimsy sympathy waves. EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER is unprincipled and grey: there are, quite simply, NO good fellahs in the bad, bad game of politics.

Raajneeti is a must-watch, and might even bag an Oscar. Watch this space.