The cinema media generally ends up publishing news which we
tend to hear after a while was not true. However as a teenager and then as a
young man I grew up on the cinema of these two men. They redefined cinema for a
lot of us in 1990s. Sunny Deol and Rajkumar Santoshi. After a gap of 16 years the two have decided
to work together again and nothing can be more epic,gigantic and exciting news.
For me the memories of Ghayal are etched like a deep line on
a rock. The movie and its characters like Balwant Rair and ACP Joe Dsouza
remain embedded in memories of millions. In fact my watching Ghayal was an accident
that I remain thankful for. Ghayal released alongside Dil and Aamir was the new
sensation so a group of friends went to watch Dil , as luck would have it the
movie show was sold out we decided to give Ghayal a shot. Sunny Deol holding a
gun in a poster outside the theater did not really make us enthusiastic. We
though we were walking into a typical boring action movie of the 90s. What
unfolded on the screen in the next two and a half odd hour was pure epicness.
Ghayal rewrote the way violence,frustration and drama took
place on screen. Sunny Deol got his screaming hero avtar from this movie. His
full throated rants against the system in that now legendary police station
outburst made it necessary for Sunny to scream for the next 11 odd years which ended up with the epic
volcanic effect in Gadar. Screaming became mandatory for any action hero post
Ghayal. That was the impact RK Santoshi created.
The duo made it up with solid consistency both Daamini and
the Ghatak ensured that Sunny Deol and Raj Kumar Santoshi’s cinema was to the
genre of violence what Yash Chopra and SRK meant for romance.
The movies these two created
were not just fist fist kick kick
stuff. They had themes of the society.
If Ghayal was how the high and mighty can choose and destroy the lives
of anyone and walk away scot free while the system would dance to their tunes.
Damini spoke about how difficult the system makes it for a woman to get justice
after a rape. In one of the most famous dialogues of the movie Damini the
female protagonist claims that a woman is subject to a second rape in
investigation.
Ghatak was about the land mafia and how the meek have no
right to land in this country and it could happen in a city like Mumbai.
RK Santoshi and Sunny Deol created cinema which was almost realistic
and yet masala. They never claimed intellect in their cinema that some of our
half baked over rated makers of today ask for and even get from a ready to
please media. Yet the cinema of RK Santoshi had more scathing and burning passionate
intellect than a lot of today’s over celebrated cinema. For example that
legendary scene in Ghayal when ACP Joe Dsouza confronts his Commissioner boss
and asks him that why did he victimize or stay silent to the victimization of
Ajay Mehra when actually Balwant Rai is the tormentor ? When he signs off his unrelenting bashing of
the system and his Boss by saying that – aisey kanoon ka saath den eke bajay
mein vardi utaar ke Ajay Mehra ka saath dena behtar samajhta hoon – I still
recall the way the entire theater went up in catcalls,whistles,claps and
screams. It has been 28 years I don’t recall a character actor driving up such
frenzy in a theater. Or that epic
interval moment of Ghatak when Kashi refuses the offer of Kathya to be his gang
member and walks away.
In short RK Santoshi and Sunny Deol created cinema of
moments. Which could compel you to watch it again and again and yet remain
thirsty.
The two now intend to create a franchise out of Ghatak and
given the story telling skills of RK Santoshi that besides Raj Kumar Hirani
this is the only man who can today teach Bollywood sequels. Only his brand of
cinema won’t be the soft and goodness of RK Hirani.
I shall be counting days now for the screen release of
another guaranteed epic.
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