Folks,
I watched all the four episodes back to back once again before I started this, and I was finally able to grasp what had eluded me the first time around. At the first viewing they seem chaotic, jumping suddenly from one mood to another, and the raging adult Rudra of episode 12 seems to have very little to do with the still, grieving teenage Rudra of episode 9. One is confounded by this disconnect, by what seems to be a jagged break in Rudra's character graph.
But this disconnect is illusory. There is a thread that binds all the three distinct segments in the narrative over the last week, and weaves them, and Rudra's progression, into something like a three movement musical composition. The adagio, the scherzo and the allegro in a Western symphony, or the alaap & jod, vilambit and drut-jhala of North Indian classical music.
- There is the bereaved, grief-stricken and guilt-ridden teenager of the opening episode, who is almost in denial mode about the death of his surrogate father, Udiya Baba. The whole of the funeral scene is slow, muted in all round loss and pain. This Rudra is weak - as Maimuyi says of him: Kamzor hoke bhag gaya. Jab tak bhagega, kamzor hi rahega --and he runs away, fearful of yet another loss, which would be unbearable, that of his beloved Maimuyi.
This is the first movement.
-Then comes the runaway Rudra, coming face to face with the need to defend himself when attacked, to stand and fight. But still, whether in the initial face off with Charles in the lorry, or in the desperate rear guard fight in the brick kiln - where he saves Charles' life because he can, unlike Charles and the rest, see a bullet coming at them in slo mo - Rudra is still only reacting and following. He is in the fight and the flight, but not of them. He views all that happens to him, and to Charles, with the bemused detachment of an outside observer.
But only till he has to face a knife-wielding thug - whom he disarms and then, with a single fluid movement of his wrist and arm, flings him right down into the akhada courtyard. The Rudra who, after getting a stinging slap, stares back at the thug and his patron the pehelwan with silent defiance is his topaz eyes, is not the same as the one who survived the brick kiln shindy.
Then he is pitchforked into a do or die wrestling match with the Mahabali, and it is then that the transformed Rudra unleashes all his new found aggressiveness and pounds the erstwhile champion, who is about 3 times his size, into submission. When the pehelwan' s gun wielding goons surround him, he stands straight and unmoving, watchful but unafraid.
But this new facet to his character does not alter this Rudra's emotional dependence on, or his fierce protectiveness towards his Maimuyi, and he races home on foot to get back to her and prove his nightmare wrong. The loving tenderness of their reunion is a counterpoint to the violence of the fights, especially the one with the Mahabali, that preceded it. In what follows, their affectionate closeness is contrasted with the lingering loneliness, the loss of identity, that still pervade Rudra's mind and heart: Kaun hoon mai?
This is the second movement.
No praise can be too high for young Siddharth as the teenage Rudra. He brings a subtlety, a mastery over his face and his eyes that reflect the slightest change of emotion like a mirror, to his role that would have done a veteran maestro of the silver screen proud. This boy is going places, and soon, of that I do not have the slightest doubt.
-Finally, in episode 12, when a full grown Rudra attacks the thuggish policeman with unrestrained, molten fury because he has hurt his Maimuyi, and thrashes him to within an inch of his life, the transformation is complete. The breakneck speed at with which this fight was shot, and the relentless ferocity of the action, reminded me of one of Pandit Ravi Shankar's scintillating druts at the end of a raga, when the rhythm escalates to unbelievable speed and the notes pour down on one like a fierce waterfall.
This Rudra is no longer a dormant volcano. He is like Mount Vesuvius in full eruption, and God save anyone, be it the Sub-Inspector or Maya, who gets in the way of the molten lava cascading down the slopes. There is no point asking why he is so reckless and heedless of consequences - the sentence for attacking a policeman is uniform can be a heavy one, and if he had killed him, no one, no matter how highly places, could have saved him - and so uncontrolled in his use of his phenomenal physical strength. He is "like that only".
All the pent up resentment against an unjust Fate that has been building up in him all these years, as a child and a teenager, unvoiced but none the less tenacious for that, is now pouring out in a savage stream, and restraint be damned.
The teen Rudra lamented, as he faced the loss of a mentor, Udiya Baba, and the fear of losing his sheet anchor, Maimuyi: Jo bhi mere paas raha, jo bhi mere saath raha, wo hamesha khatre mein raha. Main bhi shaayad shraapit hoon.. and decides to run away and free Maimuyi from the shadow of the shraap.
Not so the present Rudra. He is on the same guilt trip, though to a lesser extent: Apne zid ke kaaran apne baba ko kho diya. Jo bhi hamare pas aaya wo chala gaya. But his reaction to this could not be more different. He spits defiance at Fate and his enemies alike: ab na hi kisi ki parwaah hai na karna hai.Baki tujhe kharoch bhi aaya na, hum is Kaasi ko bhasm kar denge..
And Gautam, having been pitchforked as far as could be imagined from his last role as the gentle, unworldly Saraswatichandra, plays this new, hyper Rudra with zest, keeping him teetering on the edge, only a whisker away from total loss of control, whether he is annihilating the policemen or almost strangling Maya in a fit of rage.
This is the third and final movement.
Take 7: Now I would like to proceed directly to my Take 7 for this week, one of which is a carryover from last week, leaving the plot twists and holes, with which all of you must be quite familiar, to be summed up at the end. No, I do not have 7 on the brain, folks, it is just a co-incidence! š
-The 6 minutes and 50 seconds of the cremation of Udiya Baba. It was a sombre, elegiac passage, superbly visualized and shot, with the overarching mood of loss and sorrow heightened by the almost wordless takes, the silences that spoke more eloquently than farewell speeches or rudaali-style lamentations. I have never before seen a sequence of this kind that was so dignified and so elegant in its presentation, thanks both to the script and the performances.
There was the small, lonely figure of Rudra, a statue of frozen grief, his eyes fathomless pools of sorrow. Sorrow that burst forth only once, in just two impassioned words: Maimuyi, kyon??? But the question seemed to scream at us in its helplessness.
His eyes look lost as they follow the bird that takes wing. When Maimuyi stretches her hand out to him to guide him to the funeral rites, he looks at the hand for a long moment but makes no move to take it.The parallel with Udiya Baba's hand, which he had once grasped, only to have it pulled away from him now without warning, is still too fresh in his mind. So he turns away to the funeral pyre all by himself.
As she hands him the wood, they look at each other in silent communion that needs no words. And in the end, as he stands, his back turned to the burning pyre and to Maimuyi as well, his loneliness is more stark than ever before, both to him and to us.
The storm of guilt that is gathering force inside Rudra now is a sort of counterpoint to the earlier still mourning. As in the eye of a storm, where there is a virtual calm, but the storm is going to break very soon.
And it does. My heart went out to Maimuyi in her helpless despair and fear, for she alone has the perceptiveness to grasp what Rudra is feeling now and thus what he is likely to do.
As for his knee-jerk decision to flee, in order to save Maimuyi at least from the shraap that he is convinced he carries, while his rationale is all well and good, being a child, he has no notion of what will happen to Maimuyi if he vanishes like this without a trace, leaving no message either. But that is a kid all over! And what he does, he does out of love and caring and protectiveness for her, though she sees it as a weakness that needs to be overcome.
I loved the sardonic quip that Maimuyi makes to young Punnu, who is trying to help her gather the wood for the pyre, about having had the logs for her cremation ready in case she died before Udiya Baba. The self-mocking laughter in her eyes masks the inner loss and grief.
All in all, a sequence that tugs at your heartstrings and turns you inside out in empathy.
-The return of Rudra: Again a triumph for young Siddharth. The panic that pervades this whole body when he comes out of the nightmare. The woebegone look on his face as he storms into their house and finds it empty. The fear and foreboding as he hunts desperately for her on the ghat and the sudden, limpness in the body as he sights her and relief floods his being.
The limpet like embrace in which he holds Maimuyi, walking backwards to keep pace with her angry stride, pleading all the while: Galti ho gayi, dobara nahin karunga! The seriousness with which he listens to her reproof about his weakness in running away from loss instead of staying back and coping: Apne karam shareer ke paseena hota hai, bachuwa, jitna bhagega, utna shareer se chipkega.
The most moving, and technically the most impressive of all: the almost infinitesimal shake of the head with which he gives her his kasam that he will never ever leave her without her consent (this last obviously an escape clause for this Yashoda Maiyya to send her Kanha out to conquer the big, bad world). His eyes are now calm with peace and contentment, for he is back home once more.
And as they walk away from the smashan ghat, her arm about his shoulders, Rudra's face lights up with a rare smile.
-Yashoda & her Kanha: The scenes of Maimuyi and Rudra that follow, of pure familial joy and caring, are a delight to behold, as are the similar vignettes that come up earlier, with Rudra's chapatis qualifying more for an atlas than for the tawa! š
But now these are interspersed with other shots that are steeped with a haunting sense of loneliness and rootlessness, as Ik taraf jeevan kahe ki saath chal de.. plays in the background. As Rudra stands alone, his back to us, in a boat in the middle of the flowing Ganga, the wheel comes full circle as the question that h haunted him for 12 long years resurfaces:
Ki main hoon, kaun hoon main?
Khud se poochta hoon,
Ki koyi to bata de.
Sabki bolti kaahe band hai?
But this is only a prarambh, the song asserts, and in the final shot, Maimuyi and her bachuwa race together along the river bank, the kid dragging her along in gay abandon.
There could have been no finer exit note for Siddharth's Rudra.
-The passing of Udiya Baba: Again a spare, poignant and emotionally very rich scene. No rona dhona of the standard kind, not even from Udiya Baba's wife. Only dignified, restrained sorrow, which, along with the forgiveness from his wife that he has been desperately seeking all these years, helps ease the passing of Udiya Baba's soul.
Rudra's eyes seem full of the ghosts of the tears he never sheds, so deep is the sorrow that they contain. That it is he, and not Bishu's mother, who gives the dying man the final gangaajal seems entirely appropriate, for it is Rudra who ensures that his Udiya Baba dies at peace with himself and free of guilt.
At the very end, as Rudra closes his eyes and puts his head on Udiya Baba's chest, his lips pucker in a silent sob, the grief of a lost child.
-Maimuyi's naatak: This little bit is delightful, as much for her sudden pralaap at her fate in being disobeyed by all those she cares for, evidently fake but convincing all the same, as for the cunning pleasure in her eyes as her gambit works. This is a first of this kind of feminine manipulativeness from the otherwise hard-hitting and candid Maimuyi, and it is thoroughly enjoyable.
Full on paisa vasool!: This is for all the fights in which Rudra participates: the indecisive and very stylishly orchestrated set to with Charles in the lorry, the race to stay alive in the brick kiln, the swift disposal of the knife-wielding thug in the akhada, the spectacular triumph of agility, unexpected strength, and the killer instinct as Rudra lays the Mahabali low, and finally the no holds barred mayhem the adult Rudra unleashes on the Banaras police, most of all on the brutish Sub-Inspector.
The pummelling and the eventual laying low of the Mahabali reminded me of the bout between Krishna and Kamsa, except of course that the Mahabali survived the bout! The kid was amazing in his physical flexibility and agility.
Question: Why does the pehelwan not rejoice in the discovery of this teen wonder and try to recruit him to fight regularly for him? He would have made a killing on the bets. Instead, he stupidly orders his henchmen to shoot the kid.
The fights were all very well choreographed and executed, and the action director of Mahakumbh should take a bow. The bout with the Mahabali was spectacular, and the last one, with the Banaras police, was frenetic in its energy level and relentless action.
I loved all of them, and I would not query Rudra's sudden mastery of wrestling and all the rest. He is not aware of any special power that he possesses till it surfaces without warning, whether it is his ability to stay underwater for long spells, or when he can see, in slo mo, the bullet whizzing towards them, pull himself and Charles to safety. It is the same with his martial skills.
-Udiya's Baba's coat: As Maimuyi, spotting this ancient item of attire, that has resurfaced after decades, makes relentless fun of it and its wearer, Udiya Baba's face crumples in disappointment, like that of a hurt child. It is then that Rudra, sensitive far beyond his years, rushes into the breach with a warm and reassuring Achcha hai, Baba. And his mentor's face comes alive in satisfaction.
For that one instant, the young Rudra was the one dispensing moral support to his father figure.
Razzie contenders for the worst scenes: There are two of these, or rather 3 scenes of 2 kinds.
-The ghastly blinding of khoye paaye Pandey by Swami Balivesh. The question is not of whether Pandey deserved this or not. The question is rather of why this ugly scene had to be shown in this manner, or at all. That too in an 8 pm show watched by any number of children. It was horrible and totally uncalled for.š”
-The endless scenes of Shivanand being tortured by Grierson. I have had about as much of this as I can stand. š” I hate torture scenes in general, and these are not just brutal but repetitive as well. They should be axed forthwith.
All the rest: Questions galore!: There is really nothing to be said about Dr. APG Rao and his theory of the Seven Rakshaks, which is lapped up so greedily by the Polish Cardinal and his cohorts. These are givens, to be noted for future reference.
I was only glad to see that Dr.Rao was neatly turned out and did not have a dishevelled wig likeShivanand had when he was on the runš. But why do his goons all wear dark glasses in broad daylight like Men in Black?
I wonder if the learned doctor is in cahoots with the Poland-based Secret Society, or if Grierson has stolen his findings and trotted them out at their latest board meeting. This leads to the other question of whether he is on the side of the Rakshaks or the one trying to misappropriate the amrit when it eventually appears.
Next question, does he mean to pose as the long lost nana to the other 5 Rakshaks too as and when he finds them?
What do the Cardinal and Grierson mean by referring to Garuda as their marg darshak, who led them to the Mahakumbh? Do they mean the Garuda book that was found in the dig?
Swami Balivesh is truly scary, a mafia don in gerua vastra. I am waiting to catch a glimpse of the DM (District Magistrate, an IAS officer) who seems to be his bete noire.
The mysterious Maya seems to have been para-dropped into the tale, and her antecedents will undoubtedly surface by and by. I am not very sure whether we would not have been better off without a leading lady for Rudra, but kya karein? She is there now, and I only hope she does not become an irritant.
Her checkmating the vengeful policeman with a single phone call would seem to indicate that she has an uncle who is very highly placed.
The aforesaid uncle must also be telepathic, for she gives him no details about the actual issue over the phone, and yet he knows everything and issues clear instructions to the battered policeman to free Rudra!š
Incidentally, the Sub-Inspector acts very well during the fight with Rudra; his look of sheer terror as Rudra launches himself, like a missile, at him was spot on!
The live wire Charles to do hi episode ka mehmaan tha, alas! Let us see who turns up in Rudra's life with half of the $10 note that has Papa Hamilton's thopda! No clue as to how the Men in Black ran him down to earth, but he is clearly a step lower in the Rakshak hierarchy than the No. 1, Rudra, seeing that his garuda chin is much smaller than Rudra's magnificent, shoulder-wide mark.
Ok, folks, I will call a halt to this right now, before you drop from sheer reading fatigue! Alvida till next week, then!
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Arjun
Cricket
