The 'After Hrs' Review: 'Kya Yehi Sach Hai'

Film: Kya Yehi Sach Hai
Director:  YP Singh
Cast: Rajiv Ruda, Shalini Chandran, Bobby Vats, Saurabh Dubey, Raju Mavani
Rating: Not fit to be rated

If you are looking for entertainment, this film is not for you. If you are looking at going and having a week-end movie party with your friends, this movie is definitely not for you. This is movie is not for anybody who is looking to have some fun while munching on his caramel pop-corn. The story of this film had previously cost a senior bureaucrat his job, another senior bureaucrat her honour and forced scores of other bureaucrats and politicians to look for places to hide.

The book that this is film is based on (Carnage by Angels by YP Singh) is till date the only book which has arguably blown the lid off the state of affairs of the then Mahrashtra and how politicians blackmail senior bureaucrats and lure them with plum postings.

Don’t see it as a film, it is a visual document of what goes on behind those sepoy and orderly guarded close doors where even the media can’t reach. The film, of course, fails in every department of an out-an-out commercial film – the photography is weak, the effects below par, some actors are weak and editing very shoddy. But the story of the film is what you cannot not see.

The film is based on an IPS officer’s life. He pushes the criminals up the wall when he is posted in a sub-division of a district as an SDPO (sub-divisional police officer). Allegedly, this film is based on the life of YP Singh himself and some of his colleagues. The film talks about how corrupt the bureaucracy has become and how (specially the junior police officers in the rung) are trying desperately to break free from the systemised corruption that has been perfected over the years. There he meets his boss who has come as the superintendant of the police in the district by bribing his bosses through an agent. The film then moves to Mumbai which is the heart of most ‘corrupt actions’ in the film.

The police officer is soon posted in the ‘very sensitive’ Juhu because of its ever deteriorating law and order situation. This honest police officer was given the task to clean it up. Soon this police officer started biting more than he could chew. His raids, his interrogation techniques and his investigations soon started throwing up names of corporate honchos, socialites, his own senior officers and of course, politicians.

As you see the characters on the screen, you will notice some similarity with a few real life situations. Haven’t you heard before of a police commissioner who refused to vacate his seat even though he was promoted? Haven’t you heard of that Sardar who’s seen frequently in police circles, arranging parties for them? Or this socialite lady who was known to flit in and out of senior police officers’ cabins? Yes, they are all there. One just needs to read it up on Google to find out who are the characters similar to in real life. Perhaps that is the real mistake in the film. The characters are too real for comfort. The film is so real that it shouldn’t have been a commercial film. This film should have been more of a plain narrative.

If you look at the film you will feel the pain of a man who was drunk on exposing corruption and then went ahead and tried to change the whole system. The system threw him out.

In the end of the film, you will feel how it is for a man to get publicly humiliated. How it is for a senior bureaucrat to get dismissed from the service on the orders of the president of India. How YP Singh felt when he was being kicked out of the service simply because he did too much of a thing called investigation.

You will feel that it takes hell lot of courage to say, ‘I cannot do it, sir’.