Epic in a Jha bottle
FIRST THINGS FIRST - Prakash Jha’s Raajneeti isn’t based on the Gandhi family. Shrimati Indu Pratap, of course, has the looks, the gait, the wave and all the sarees of Shrimati Sonia Gandhi. But then, the similarities end there. All talk of Katrina’s Sonia avatar is just bullshit. Prakash Jha is no fool to accept such comparisons wholeheartedly. He does know for himself that the whole world is drawing comparisons between Indu and Sonia, but prefers putting them on iggy mode. He knows his version of the story better. He has reiterated in interviews and media statements that Raajneeti is no Sonia sad story. I stand by him. Raajneeti is no Gandhi-Sonia sob episode.
What is Raajneeti then? Instead of mimicking the Rajiv-Rahul-Sonias on screen with his immensely talented star cast, Jha has pulled out those heroes and anti-heroes straight out of the pages of the Mahabharata and clad them in designer Khadi. Further still, he has even blended one of Veda Vyasa’s heroes with the Corleone of Mario Puzo's Godfather to create his hero/anti-hero to an amazingly intriguing effect.
And, there lies Raajneeti’s charm. Jha knows his craft. There sure are many a Bollywood moment in the Apaharan-Gangajal maker’s opus. But Raajneeti is a class creation in its own style. The film isn’t a chronicle of the day to day political circus that gets enacted in some hinterland of a diversity named India. Raajneeti is, in fact, a political scenario waiting to happen. Gone are the days when the Gandhi topis ruled the roost and every one else nodded in agreement. Jha narrates to the world a tale that is sure to unfold. If you didn’t know, the khadi of yore is no more. Designer khadi, mod BlackBerry, high-end Mercs and more significantly, foreign university doctorates, have started coming into India’s raajneeti. Jha has brought in the Corleonish Arjuna who has as his American university research topic “the subtextual violence in 19th century Victorian poetry”. Research almost over, the young dashing hero dons the anti-hero garb to play politics to avenge the slap on the face and a handful of bullets showered on the parivaar. He has on the other side of the play-field none other than his brother, an illegitimate one though, brought up as a Dalit somewhere in a place called Azadnagar. Arjuna and Karna, who else!
Pulled down in a crowd of mighty men, Jha’s Karna finds himself in the arms of a protective Duryodhana, who had just fallen out of the Parivaar’s influential cousins. Perfect setting for Mahabharata to be retold!
Jha knows his craft so well. Raajneeti has its own ways of narrating the tale, and it is interesting too. Flaws do run in one after the other - for instance, the way the Kunti-Karna (Bharti- Suraj) meeting happens. Bharti makes such a loaded moment look so inane and off the mark. Jha could have done justice to that scene. If he had done that cinematically appealing, the scene could have been one of the high points of Raajneeti. But then, he ruined it. There are many such moments where Jha could have acted more like what he is. He is an ace craftsman of celluloid tales, but such instances could take the sheen out of his capabilities. Raajneeti suffers from such setbacks.
Raajneeti, as a whole, is a movie I would watch again, and again. For, it has the master strokes of a film maker who knows his art. Equally important are the actors Jha has picked to play his characters. Ranbir is one actor with tons of potential - his quiet presence and his doings bring out the actor in him. Nana Patekar, as the modern day Krishna, proves why he falls in the league of better actors. Katrina and Arjun Rampal are not bad, but Ranbir scores all the brownie points in comparison. The two men I would want to applaud all through the movie are Ajay Devgan and Manoj Bajpai – the Karna-Duryodhana combo. Deadly indeed, the two are. Every time they are on screen, they take over the scene. I would want to watch Raajneeti yet again for these portrayals.
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