It’s difficult to write about something that has been analysed, written and talked about so much, even on this blog. But when the point of discussion is Hey Ram, there is always something new to say. In that belief, here goes my DVD-commentary-like post, best consumed alongside a repeat viewing of the classic. [Now, that’s a good excuse for not properly structuring this post!]

The movie begins with a dedication to Kamal’s mentor, Ananthu: “Thank you for directing me towards this direction”. Their relationship began while both worked under K Balachander, with Ananthu exposing Kamal to things like world cinema. Also, Hey Ram was supposed to be Kamal’s formal foray into direction, which was not to be. Anyway, we can consider it as the first movie Kamal wanted to put his stamp officially on.

In the Hindi version of the movie, notice the name of the movie appear in English last, after Hindi and Urdu. Kamal defies convention as always, while also granting importance to India’s own languages.

As I have mentioned a few times before, Kamal is to be treated as a creator whose chosen medium happens to be film. This is yet again symbolised in the title song. Kamal gives vent to his own agony and raises his (own) voice for sanity and peace, aptly in his own words (in Tamil). That pretty much summarises the objective of the movie.

In addition to donning the new hat of lyricist (to two of the songs), Kamal handles various usual departments including choreography. While his skill at screenplay has been proven in many other movies, this one features the Page-o-Minute technique — one minute on screen being written on exactly one page. Ironically, the script didn’t hold the attention of most movie-goers, with its multilingual dialogues.

Further on the technical side, this was the movie that brought back sync sound (dialogues recorded on the spot instead of being dubbed later). Of course, the voices for a few actors were dubbed. But you would notice that most actors remained unchanged for both languages of the movie. They were meticulously chosen for their background and also their ability to speak in either language.

Shah Rukh Khan was a big draw in the movie. Kamal openly admitted that: “Ask the distributors in North India what Shah Rukh means”. Among the movies I have watched, I’d rate this performance of his next only to Swades. Kudos for his effort in speaking Tamil too (unlike the recent buffoonery in Om Shanti Om).

Another person who had a great outing was Saurabh Shukla. More known for his dialogue-writing skills till then, he touched everyone’s hearts here.

A few gems in the screenplay are on display during the Kamal-Rani scenes:

• Aparna uses a pistol with no bullets to protect herself from potential intruders. Saket first makes fun of it, but it comes to his use later when he is held captive by the Muslim gang.
• While getting up from the bed, Aparna asks Saket to not disturb the mark-sheets. “Okay teacher”, he says. This is just one of the few references to her profession, without actually having a scene to establish it.
• After he ties the thaali (mangalsutra), he asks for some symbol for himself. She takes one of her toe-rings (metti) and gives it to him to use as a ring. Much later, when he goes to see Mythili and she touches his feet, he raises his hands to bless her and notices that ring, bringing back memories of his first wife.

Bollywood’s most-loved villain, Amjad Khan (also the name of Shah Rukh’s character) had a connection with this movie. His son, Shadab memorably played Altaf, the tailor in Calcutta who is responsible for Aparna’s rape and murder. Amjad Khan featured in Kamal’s Vikram one and half decades earlier.

Speaking of Altaf, Saket the common man very slowly realises the level of Hindu-Muslim tension in the country, culminating in the brutal end of his wife. Saket’s struggle is played out superbly with Rani Mukherjee’s continous screaming in the background.

Rani was at that time very new to the movies, with just the hits of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Ghulam behind her. Kamal the director extracted a very mature performance, which she is now known to be capable of, as the reigning queen of Bollywood.

While the director dwarfs Kamal the actor in Hey Ram, the latter’s performance is nevertheless not to be ignored. One image that stands out it is during the night of Saket’s wedding with Mythili — he shivers after pouring water on himself, as he struggles to bury the demons of his past.

Back to the director, a portion of “Nee paartha paarvaikku…” is simply brilliant. As Saket reminisces about Aparna fondly, a sequence of shots shows them both at various places in Calcutta doing a variety of things. It is structured as a few shots, but the camera moving from left to right combined with perfect editing lends to effective screenplay. Every place where Saket sees while roaming has a memory of Aparna.

Breaking the flow again, we need to get to Atul Kulkarni. He was a wonderful ‘discovery’ of Hey Ram. Kamal the actor lets him dominate in the scenes they share together, as per the needs of the script. Kulkarni rightly went onto win the National Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Just as the first twist in the movie, that of Saket’s peaceful life being shattered, the second one too comes up slowly. We are made aware of the Maharaja’s conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi bit by bit, starting from the air-port and ending at a secret location on the occasion of Dussehra. The last portion with Saket in inebriated state is filmed beautifully, with hardly any dialogues. All along, we also figure out the personal motives of the Raja and Abhyankar behind their plot to eliminate Gandhi.

The graphics is possibly a tad overdone overall, though it serves the purpose of projecting Saket’s thoughts.

The usage of Tamil (Saket’s mother-tongue) is effortless even in the Hindi version — be it “Balcony kadhava saathu, Aparna!” when he anxiously shouts out to protect her from the intruders or Hindu hymns in the Chennai episode. Kamal’s knowledge of Hindu and Brahmin traditions are pretty complete. It peaks with his rendition of “Brahmanandam…” when Saket renounces all relations before moving to Delhi.

The story is primarily the journey of one man. But it also travels to all corners of India and even to Pakistan. At every place, the rich cultural diversity of India is masterfully blended into the screenplay.

Though being a ‘period’ subject, the contemporariness is unmistakeable. After the decade of Babri Masjid demolition and Mumbai riots, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had just secured power in India. Warning bells ring in the movie with a reference to Savarkar, the Nazi Swastika morphing into a lotus (BJP’s election symbol). Kamal speaks through his characters at one point: “Religion and politics”, like “sex and violence” is a “pucca commercial combination”! Later in the movie, as a sign of things to come in the future of India, we witness corruption at Gandhi’s place itself.

Back to the movie, it thrives on sutblety and metaphors. One example is the Raja putting the mad / useless horse to death, with the rest of the horses in the stable being blind-folded. The man is ruthless in pursuing his objective and getting rid of useless items on his way. At the same time, he is careful to keep his other subjects unaware of his nature. At another juncture, when Abhyankar asks Saket to promise that he will perform the assigned task unmindful of his relations, he just turns to the left with sad eyes, the director merely indicating to us that his heart is hesitant to give up Mythili.

The protagonist of the movie is ordinary like any of us. As much as he tries to hide it from himself, he remains a confused man. Even in the end, when he argues with Amjad, he cries and convinces himself that Gandhi is the root cause, even as he struggles to maintain that belief. At the same time, the character also has a lot of the real-life Kamal. He himself said in an interview, sometime ago, that the movie was born out of the question “What would have I done had I been there?”.

The hotel in Delhi where Saket stays is the very place where Nathuram Godse stayed. There is a small reference to it in the movie too. Another interesting tidbit is that Kamal stayed in the same hotel while writing the script, to help him get into the head of Gandhi’s assassin.

The final part of the movie features an interesting character, Govardhan, played by Gollapudi Maruthi Rao. He had a memorable role in Kamal’s Swathi Muthyam (Sipikkul Muthu) too.

Naseer’s role as Gandhi was probably a dream-come-true for him. He was one of the actors who unsuccessfully screen-tested for the lead role in the 1982 biopic by Richard Attenborough.

Throughout the movie, Kamal effectively uses small facts to make his point — Jinnah’s daughter staying back in India, Rama coming through Khyber Pass (reference to Aryan theory), Mountbatten announcing that Gandhi was killed by a Hindu and so on.

As much as I try to detach myself from my sixth viewing of the movie, I get drawn in and forget to note down points for this post. Ultimately, the movie will remain to me, more than anything else, a textbook in film-making.

[Image courtesy: Philip Lutgendorf, University of Iowa]