He claims he was born a ‘nishachar’, a nightcrawler. Darkness is what gives him his lifeblood. Raman Raghav2.0 promises to be yet another interesting inhabitant of Anurag Kashyap’s trademark netherworld.
Right from Last Train To Mahakali , his male characters have been dark, brooding and inward-looking. They live on the margins of society and not necessarily in the sense of economic deprivation. They are at the margins of law, their sanity is on the verge of crossing into forbidden lanes and their condition is easy to pathologise but difficult to understand. They operate in a different state of consciousness, with cocaine, marijuana, cigarette and alcohol providing the necessary stimulation. That the best parts of these movies: Last Train To Mahakali , Paanch , No Smoking , Dev D and Bombay Velvet , have these protagonists functioning in the night or in the dark is no coincidence. The darkness in the ambience acts as a perfect mirror to their character.
In some of the characters, a troubled childhood presages a disturbed adulthood. ‘Sir’ in Last Train To Mahakali , a medical student at AIIMS, wants to devise a painless method to kill people because he has seen his parents die a painful death. Luke Morrison from Paanch and K from No Smoking both have seen their parents separate early; and both display bouts of violence when they are reminded of their parents. Dev Dhillon from Dev D has been sent to boarding school early as his parents can’t bear his arrogance at home and hence, he is deprived of a caring childhood. Balraj has had a difficult experience with his foster mother, a sex worker, who, he says, has used him as a naukar (servant); a dallal (pimp) and a coolie (labourer).
These elements from the protagonists’ pasts form such minor components in the respective films that it is easy to miss them. The director seems more interested in the way the present life of these non-conformists plays out, without passing any moral judgment on them.
Each of them is obsessively invested in a particular sphere of activity into which he pours all his creative energies. More often than not, the darkness that fuels their creative pursuits also acts as a conduit for self-destruction.
Both Sir and Luke (both played by KK) suffer from a sense of there being an unrecognised genius in them. ‘Sir’ leaves AIIMS as he feels the researchers there are unresponsive and begins experimenting with a ‘vaccine’ that he says is a cure for a ‘virus’ but in reality is poison.
Luke Morrison, the alpha-male among the five rock band members in Paanch (their band is rather suggestively named ‘parasites’), considers himself a musical virtuoso and creates music with the same ferocity that he uses to pound those who challenge his authority.
Somewhere late into the film, as we are trying to cotton to Luke’s mania, we see a sense of dejection in him: the Public Relations official who has promised the group a music contract has just fleeced them of their stolen money. Luke can do little but to express his rage at his friends. He then enters his room and, for the first time, we see the forbidden zone: the inner section of his room. On his wall is written:
Van Gogh,
Michelangelo were
unrecognized geniuses in
their lives.
As I am now
Recognize Me
Luke Morrison
The scarred soul of a raging bull
In the case of both K (John Abraham in No Smoking ) and Dev (Abhay Deol in Dev D ), it is not some inherent genius but an extreme narcissism, tinged with spiteful misogyny, that guides their actions. For K, his only soulmate is his smoking habit and when it is snatched at gunpoint, he senses a loss of individuality, and, ultimately, loss of soul. His ‘God delusion’, the misconception that the world is centred around him, is shattered when he finds an equal in Baba Bangali, a post-modernist Hitler, who is hell-bent on dispossessing him of the only habit that gives him his identity.
For Dev, his obsession with his own persona makes him see Paro merely as an object of desire. He realises late that he doesn’t love her — hell, he has never even looked at her with affection. She is just a tool to satisfy his sexual appetite. The only person he can genuinely love is himself and Paro once even asks him to marry the mirror!
In the case of Johny Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor in Bombay Velvet ), an unlettered upstart in an unforgiving metropolis, Bombay, of post-Independence India, it is the desire to be remembered as a ‘Big Shot’ that gives him the licence to connive with the top-shots, and kill his opponents. His narcissism is more child-like and malleable. Apart from brutality, he displays sadomasochism by taking pleasure in not only killing gang members but also hitting his ladylove and getting beaten in the boxing ring. It is as if he is shedding blood to extract a legacy of his own from the emerging megapolis.
It is clear from the way the life trajectories of the characters progress that their journeys will only end in self-destruction. However, just like Martin Scorcese in Taxi Driver , Kashyap intends to give their darkness its moments of catharsis, through music and episodes of psychedelia.
In the under-appreciated album of Paanch , two songs, ‘Main Khuda ’ and ‘Tamas’ , sketch the lead characters, especially Luke. ‘Main Khuda’ has Luke self-reflecting, with the same manic passion that he uses to almost kill two police officials a few scenes later. As the song reaches its crescendo, he proclaims: Sar jhuka, khuda hoon main (I’m the Lord, bow before me). He seems to almost derive orgasmic pleasure out of this God Complex.
In complete contrast to the high-octane Sar jhuka is the whisper of Tam, tam chhaaya hai tamas (As the darkness descends) which plays as the five leads decide to dispose of the bodies of some people they’ve just killed, by feeding them to the vultures. As they carry out their ghastly act, the song plays by calling them ‘raatri ke yaatri’ (night travellers)!
In Dev D , Kashyap uses another tool to introduce us to Dev’s state of mind — three street musicians, called The Twilight Players, who, as we start seeing things from Dev’s perspective somewhere halfway into the movie, act as Dev’s inner voice. Through their late-night street performances, Dev starts encountering his narcissism and confronting his inner demons.
Balraj from Bombay Velvet , who is rechristened ‘Johny’ Balraj, is shown as having fate sealed for him when the Aam Hindustani song plays much before he comes into the picture. It is clear that being remembered as a ‘big shot’ will not be easy for someone without deep roots. He will remain the Outsider.
