Tale of erstwhile royal people and 'rajniti' in Anurag Kashyap's 'Gulaal'

Gulaal
Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Piyush Mishra, Raj Singh Chaudhary, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal, Ayesha Mohan
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Rating: ***, 1/2 *

Set in a fictional town in Rajasthan, the story is built on the historical facts of an aristocracy deprived of their privy purses during Indira Gandhi’s rule who found themselves humiliated and penniless and turned to commerce and tourism to survive. In this environment, an infuriated patriotic Dukki bana (Kay Kay Menon), a local power centre, is cultivating a covert army to fight for a separate Rajputana state for the Rajputs. His source of funding and manpower – the local college campus. His nemesis is an ambitious brother-sister duo (Aditya Srivastava, Ayesha Mohan), the unacknowledged illegitimate children of the king seeking social recognition, status and power. Dukki’s brother Prithvi bana (Piyush Mishra) plays the voice of the conscience.

At the opening of the movie, the maker acknowledges his inspiration: the song ‘Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai’ from Pyaasa and the poet Sahir Ludhianvi, lyricist of the song. Piyush Mishra provides the narrative link to Gulaal with his astonishing poetic and musical interpretation of several anthems like this song from Pyaasa and ‘Sarfaroshi ki tamanna’ incorporating contemporary social and political comments within. Note the references to 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Mishra’s music and his interpretation of the mentally troubled, culturally-conflicted Lennon loving Prithvi bana are genius.

Two young men become pawns in a game of kings and kingmakers, puppets and puppeteers. Dileep (Raj Singh Chaudhary), a law student accompanied by his trusted servant Bhanwar, shares a strange house in a remote area with a macho prince Rananjay (Abhimanyu Singh). A naïve Dileep, sucked into a ruthless Machiavellian game of politics loses his footing to love and his innocence to circumstance. Here is the first weakness in the script – the love story is unconvincing – both between Dilip and Kiran (Mohan) and Dilip and Anuja (Jesse Randhawa), a teacher who dresses more like a model, is ragged by college hooligans and shares a bond with Dilip.

Director Anurag Kashyap has often referred to Gulaal as his passion project. Full marks to the writers Anurag Kashyap, Raj Chaudhary and Aparna Chaturvedi for crafting such a complex Shakespearean tragedy on the politics of separatism and to the director for a film that eight years after the making looks just as current. He has incredible visuals by director of photography Rajiv Rai (who embraces the theme colour red in his palette), production designer Wasiq Khan and the ensemble of actors who slips into their characters, absorbing you further in the drama, to enhance his storytelling. If only Kashyap knew when to stop. In the middle somewhere you are fidgeting to reach the finish and overwhelmed by a visual, auditory and gimmick overload.

The three women (Randhawa, Mohan and Mahi Gill in two mujra numbers) look too Punjabi to pass off as Rajasthani. Drinks called ‘Democracy’, ‘Capitalism’, ‘Constitution’ and the neon lit hotel name ‘Hello There’ which becomes ‘Hell here’ are too obvious.

Deepak Dobriyal as Dukki bana’s right hand man Bhatti is superb (especially in the scene at the paan-wala). Abhimanyu Singh wins you over as the macho but hurting prince. Menon is first rate and the rest of the cast lends able support. As one the characters says, ‘Mein Amar Chitra Katha main nahin jeena chahta hoon’. Gulaal might be one of many metaphors in the film, but it clearly says it’s time to stop living in a fantasy world. Here’s a reality check – and it isn’t pretty.