Folks,
I am sorry to be so late, but at least I am in good time for Episode 9!
Now this one looks, at first sight, like a purely kidnappers vs victim plot, but in fact it is much more than that, thanks to the 3 principal players - Gopal, Yudh, and Rishi. Each of them plays a cat and mouse game with his opponents, and at times successfully, at times apparently successfully but with unexpected losses , and at time disastrously. In this sense, Episode 8 looks more and more like a textbook case study in negotiations with terrorists holding a hostage. Let us take these three one by one and see how their moves pan out.
Gopal: Now all professional negotiators in such cases need to have a link with the kidnappers if they are to be effective, and they also need to retain the confidence of the police and the victim's family if they are to be as long lasting as Gopal seems to have been. But the word Janus-faced, or dogula, seems to have been made for him. He is devious with a capital D, and as cunning as they make them. He knows how to play the cat and mouse game expertly. How to soften up a city slicker like Yudh, stage by careful stage, the way a bakra is got ready to be sacrificed.
So, after they get the first set of conditions, all of which are basically for the protection of the environment and for the benefit of the adivasis living in the area, Gopal insists that Yudh should not give in, as this would only lead to even more demands. When Anand suggests that they ask for proof that Rishi is alive, and they then watch the video, Gopal is quick to praise Taruni warmly for backing his position that they should wait a bit longer.
Next, when the announcement of a reward, and activating all the police informers, produces no result, he starts backtracking, lamenting that he knew none of this would work, though it was he who had been assiduously advocating delaying tactics. He does this so as to push the already tense Yudh towards capitulation, and the acceptance of the first set of demands, but not without preserving his mask of firmness.
So he reaffirms, as soon as Yudh announces that he would accept all the demands of the AILF (probably All India Left Front), that it would be a wrong move. He then achieves what he had really wanted all along- an explosive statement from an exasperated Yudh that all he wanted was to save his son, and he would go ahead.
This last bit, of Yudh roaring at Gopal from 3 feet way, was vintage Amitabh, the only thing missing being catching Gopal by the collar!
Now, the AILF, as soon as the news of Yudh's acceptance of their demands is announced over the radio, move to get the clearance of their Central Committee for going ahead and releasing Rishi as soon as their terms have been implemented in practice. There is NO indication, in the conversation between the young woman cadre and her senior, about any demand for a cash ransom.
But what does Gopal do? He takes advantage of the delay (caused by this appeal to the Central Committee), and turns up at the guest house, announcing an additional demand for Ra, 20 crores. No piece of paper from the AILF this time, be it noted, only a verbal statement by Gopal, obviously a fake one. He intends to take a cut from this ransom amount, and counts on the AILF being too pleased with their share of the booty to reprimand or punish him for milking Yudh for this amount.
Only, he underestimates Yudh. It is not clear whether Yudh distrusts Gopal, but in any case, he digs his heels in and makes the counter offer: the 20 crores or the original list of demands but not both. Now see what Gopal, the longstanding advocate of firmness and holding out against the AILF in the negotiations, has to say. Beta hai aapka.. aap galti kar rahe hain, bahut badi galti... Hardly what you would expect from a hard-nosed, evenhanded negotiator! But then Gopal, who could not care two hoots about the environment or the adivasis, sees the only thing he cares about, the moolah, slipping thru his fingers, and he tries desperately to retain some of it. He fails.
When, after Rishi has been rescued, Gopal is told by the AILF that there was no 20 crores as announced by Yudh, he has to pretend that there had never been any such demand. If he had got hold of that amount, and given it, minus his cut, to the AILF, they would have excused him for making that cash demand in their name without their permission. But not now, when they have no ransom in their coffers, plus they have lost face vis a vis the public. So Gopal has to find an escape route, which is to swear vengeance against Yudh for double crossing them all, and then prove his bonafides to the AILF by setting off that blast in the mine.
Gopal is so callous that the lives of the 16 miners who might have all died in the blast, and are in any cases injured, some seriously, do not matter to him at all. But in the end, his cat and mouse game gets him nowhere, for he has nothing to show for his machinations except the dubious pleasure of seeing Yudh & Co. struggle to cope with the aftermath of the blast.
Yudh: After 4 decades of playing macho men who were strong thru and thru, who would never bend in the face of adversity, Amitabh Bachchan now brings alive the conflicted, uncertain and confused Yudh - totally unfamiliar territory for him - to perfection.
Yudh can dominate the corporate world in Delhi, but here he is operating on completely unfamiliar terrain, distraught by what has happened to his son, with shadowy enemies whom he cannot get hold of, and pulled this way and that way by the police, Gopal and Nayantara, with only Taruni as a stable and sensible support. No wonder that to begin with, he is disoriented, physically, emotionally and mentally, and not at the top of his game.
Still, after giving in, first to Gopal and the police when he agrees to wait till that evening, and then to his own desperate need to get his son back by accepting the list of AILF conditions, Yudh comes into his own, without warning, when Gopal trots out the fake 20 crore supplementary demand. He senses that something is very fishy, and that he cannot go along with these new demands no matter how much Nayantara pleads that he should. He then follows his gut instinct in making his counter offer, the money or the first set of demands, but not both.
Yudh has started playing his own cat and mouse game, with Gopal more than with the AILF (though he probably does not see this clearly as yet).
The same gut instinct, and his respect for Taruni's good judgment, lead to Yudh, after seeing what Rishi had to say to them in the video, getting the adivasi boys released , by doing which he in effect saves Rishi.
Boxed in by various objections to the simpler suggestions as to how to account for Rishi's escape, Yudh continues the cat and mouse game with the AILF by making the fake announcement of a 20 crore ransom having been paid. He wants the AILF to lose face vis a vis the janata, but he forgets about Gopal, and his foxy move literally explodes in his face.
Also, I was surprised at Yudh announcing this (fake) ransom payment in public without a care as to the legal repercussions. It is a crime to pay ransom to a terrorist outfit, which is why such payments to the Naxalites are always kept confidential and never made public. I would have expected someone like Anurag Kashyap to be more careful about such details!
I loved the way in which Yudh is initially bewildered by the sudden mine disaster, and makes pointless long term suggestions to a desperate Anand, who is clamouring for medicines and doctors, about opening a hospital for the mine workers. It made him look human, and vulnerable. But the old steel shone bright once more when he tells the angry miners that far from their going on strike, it was he who was going to close down the operations and institute an enquiry, apart from getting the necessary safety measures in place.
Rishi: His is the carefree cat and mouse game of a boy striving all the time to outwit his captors. Rishi is never afraid of them or of what they might do to him, and he seems to treat the whole kidnapping episode as a kind of competition, at which he has to see how he can trip up those holding him captive. He jokes all the time, especially at the expense of the young woman, and his escape is a piece of pure boyish daredevilry. As is the episode with the snake, where he is more intent on saving her from the snake than in pushing her aside and hollering to the passing police van.
Because he lacks the deadly seriousness necessary to win at this sort of game, Rishi would never have done it but for his two young adivasi friends. But the gods sometimes favour the good at heart, and so Rishi's easygoing friendship with his cricket team pays off for him, unexpectedly and in full measure.
No wonder that Anand remarks to Yudh that whether his son understands business or not, he has the dil jeetne ka talent . Incidentally, as I did wrt Episode 1, I goofed up here after a first viewing - I somehow thought that the person referred to was Taruni, not Rishi. Mea culpa, Sandhya my pet!
The slow smile, of pride and pleasure, on Taruni's face as Anand praised Rishi was wonderful to behold. Also superb, and infinitely touching, was the sight of Yudh and Nayantara sitting in front of the screen watching and rewatching Rishi's video, hands outstretched as if they would touch and caress his face.
Incidentally, the rescue scene itself was badly handled and hard to understand, what with the pitch darkness and the lack of clarity - all too common a failing in Yudh - in the spoken words. There can be such a thing as too much realism!
The AILF : They seemed to be far less harsh in their handling of Rishi, and far less ruthless in the aftermath of his escape, than one would have expected from such an extremist outfit. In the latter case, at least a couple of the cadres would have been shot summarily for dereliction of duty and sheer incompetence.
As for the Nandita Das look alike, I am glad this is not a regular soap, otherwise we would have had Rishi serenading her in the jungles!đ Jokes apart, I am sure she is not going to vanish so soon. Maybe Rishi will insist on staying put and managing the mines, with the evident possibilities that would open up for a mildly romantic angle!
Taruni: She is cool, collected and competent all thru, as always. Her watchful solicitude for her father, and her efficiency in tackling that sudden fit of disorientation in Yudh (the Joker this time seems to be just a reflection of Yudh's state of mind) move even the hitherto hostile Nayantara to gratitude and a grudging kind of acceptance from then on, which must have been strengthened by Taruni's immediate diagnosis that there was no fear of Rishi suffering from pneumonia. I had, as you would have seen from my last post, anticipated this when I wrote:
I suspect that for all her animosity towards Taruni, when the going gets really rough with the Naxalites, it is to her that Nayantara will turn for support and strength.
Nor was I surprised at Taruni taking charge of the caring for the wounded miners, despite the callous lethargy of the rescue staff , the shortage of medicines and even of transport for the injured. She is a doer, who will plough ahead heedless of the obstacles.
Yudh's odd offer: But from that to accepting Yudh's somewhat strange offer that she stay on there and run the hospital for the miners and their families is too much of a leap even for Taruni to take. Moreover, it made no sense from Yudh's point of view either . He wants her to be with him in his last few years of life, plus he wants to use her talent as the CEO of Shanti Constructions. Why then does he ask her to stay put with his mining company? It is not even clear if Rishi is going to continue as the CEO of the Shanti Mining Company.
The mystery of the missing medical report: Which is no longer missing, which is the real problem for Taruni. As she hands it to her father, having found it on his desk the day Rishi was kidnapped, she seems to be hovering between dawning distrust and persisting trust in him, whereas he reacts, naturally, with an astonished Kya??
Apart from the key issue of her trust in him, or the lack of it, which will be crucial for Yudh's bond with his daughter, there are other questions that pop up.
Someone has clearly placed that report, extracted from Dr. Mehra's crashed car, on Yudh's desk after he had left his office and before Taruni was ushered into his room.
1) How did that person know that Taruni was going to come there then? He/she must have been right there in the office to be able to do it after she turned up unexpectedly.
2) How did he/she know that Yudh had told Cindy to ask Taruni to look at some of the files on his desk? If he had not said that, Taruni would never have gone near his desk at all, not to speak of reading any of the files there. Now this means that the either the file was put there by Cindy, or by someone who heard her tell Taruni that her father had wanted her to look at the files. I would plump for Cindy.
(The absent) Mona: As I had noted the last time, I do not have much sympathy to spare for Mona, whose lack of judgment and clear thinking have landed her in the mess where she is now. For me , that was the most disheartening part of the previous episode: the sheer lack of commonsense and guts even in a modern professional woman.
Now that she has landed Shanti Constructions in a dangerous position, with sensitive information in Kapil's hands (one at least hopes that she has had the sense to encrypt the files, and to have a strong password for the laptop and then for the documents), what does she and what does Anand propose to do about it?
In their place, I would have asked that troubleshooter of theirs, Dabra (?) to catch Kapil, have 3 thugs crowd him, put a gun to his head and get the laptop and the mobile back. It is the only effective course of action, and it is not as though they do not use such strong arm methods; they did it with Rahul Sharma.
But as it is, Anand does not seem to be doing anything but gasp 'What?" , when he hears of this disaster, and then he has to rush off to join Yudh at the mining site.
Question of the day: Mona calls Anand with congratulations about Rishi's rescue even as Yudh & Co. are discussing with the police about how best to word the announcement. How come? Is she telepathic?
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Arjun
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