Rang De Basanti (Drama)

• Director: Rakyesh Mehra

• Cast: Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kunal, Soha Ali Khan, Alice Patten, Waheeda Rehman, Atul Kulkarni, Om Puri

• Showing at Jai Nepal, Kumari

Kathmandu:

We’ve fired enough of that armchair patriotism. Mostly, resting on someone else’s shoulder and preferably also using someone else’s gun! So it’s time we paid little attention to popcorn patriotism. However, our brash and audacious Aamir, who started his foray singing about the papa who preached to preaching patriotism himself, seems undeterred. Because, there’s still more to the patriotic pap and the jingoistic jingles of yore than meets the eye.

Though the beak and bloody biopic apparently has no relevance to modern day India, Rang De Basanti draws parallels between the British India and modern India, and the enemies it still needs to battle against. After Mangal Pandey, it is probably Aamir’s second rising, as the pioneering modern day leader of India.

The battle between the British and the Indians might well have concluded long ago, but India still needs to fight the battle with its own breed of fiends marauding in the cozy corridors democratic India. So, Rang De Basanti is not one of those sequels to pap patrotism where imperialism’s underdog become the overlord, but one with a strong social commitment. It’s about how the duds turn into dudes desperate to salvage their nation from the political predators preying upon their nation.

A London-based filmmaker Sue (Alice Patten) comes across the memoirs of her grandfather, a British officer who served during the Indian freedom struggle, and plans to shoot a film on the revolutionaries of India. But little did she appreciate her grandfather’s words, “You fall in love at the first sight” when she herself is smitten by the pristine beauty of India and her people.

As she advances into her long deferred project, she meets five duds (college youngsters) who have everything, except the ambition to become one of those great leaders. So, what comes as a natural proposition to act seems quite unsavory for these products of modern India. Not surprisingly however, Sue, the quintessential firang lady not only persuades them to act in her film but also become the real-life heroes.

As the shooting starts, the difference between the past and the present blurs and the modern dudes, without realising, replay the part of the great leaders.

Aamir plays the exuberant DJ (Dil Jeet), who still loves hanging around the university, his friends Aslam and Sharman only emphasise the laidback modern generation, for whom nothing promising awaits outside the university premises.

The realities of life strikes hard when their friend, Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) is widowed after Flight Lieutenant Ajay Rathod (Madhavan) dies in a plane crash after only a few days of marriage. The event not only marks a U-turn in the lives of these dandy dudes, but also helps them realise their own vulnerability.

The rest of the film is the continuation of the half-won battle for yet another freedom struggle. There’s one hitch, though. During the first half, the auditions for the supposed documentary is stretched unnecessarily, and most audience hardly would have the patience to sit through the prolonged recap of the inconsequential exploits of defunct leaders. Nevertheless that seems unavoidable at a certain point later in the flick. There are moments of real epiphany, when one after the other the friends lose each other, but the most touching, of course, is reserved for the climax.

The screenplay is full of witty one-liners speaking volumes about the evils entrenched in the Indian soil. But, it’s the cast that deserves the plaudits, who put together the magnificent montage of monstrous modern India. Aamir Khan, though, needs to grow out of his brass roles, because we expect him to appear in more mature roles.

Besides the cast and crew, another brilliant aspect of the film is its cinematography that compensates for the absence of exotic locales and the foot tapping background score by AR Rehman.

Indeed, a welcome break from the monotony of chiffon cinema!