Heros and Anti-Heros: Grey is the new Black!

We all admire his courage, outstanding achievements, wit, his capabilities to outsmart others and rise triumphant in the end, but in the name of 'Jihaad'.

What was that again?!

If we go by the definition of a hero:

A person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities.

Somewhere living in these times of mixed moralities, we have forgotten the last part of that definition 'noble qualities' and have shifted our eyes to 'courage and achievements'.

Noble qualities are something a person MUST have to be called a 'Hero!'.

A few days back, on 5th May'18, I saw Omerta, a biological crime drama, directed by Mr. Hansal Mehta, a prolific director, and the lead role of Ahmed Omar Saeed was played by, exceptionally talented, Rajkumar Rao.

Picture Credit: Internet. On the Left is actor Mr. Rajkumar Rao and Right is Director Mr. Hansal Mehta

The film was a gripping retelling of the happenings during the end 90's and beginning 20's. The director and the actor have perfectly captured the horror, disgust, and hate of this character. As is, when you have actors like Rajkumar Rao, there's not much to worry about.

They. Will. Perform!

But here comes my point, recently the fight that was very pronounced, a hero versus a villain, has very much dissolved in one another.

Today those lines are blurred, those lines are shaken, we are getting see more 'grey shades' of stories and characters.

(Yes it is the reality, no doubt!)

But is it 'Right'? That's my question!

Bollywood made movies on one moral ground, that is, good over evil, the same ground on which our epic 'Ramayana' was written and stated,'The hero is right and the villain is wrong'. 

Recently, all of us, be it audiences or the artists, writers, everyone have started showing sympathy to the characters on the other side or we can say 'We've stopped choosing sides!', the Anti-Heros, this color 'Grey' has recently become evidently relevant somehow.

Movies like Raavan, Raees, Haseena Parkar, Raman Raghav 

are such good examples of glorifying Anti-Heros and also symbols of our shaken morality. They confuse us to a point, that we start reasoning with it, even if what the character did was bad but his/her intention was not, or he/she had to do it that way!

Wassepur is a great example for that matter, the climax gives us both poetic and objective justice, but the horror we see is so 'pleasurable' that we have to rectify ourselves (many, have still not done that yet). I am sure not all of us have that courage to run around holding a gun like that, let alone killing.

Ganges of Wassepur II: Climax scene 

A great example that comes to mind when talking about mixed moralities is a film we all have loved, Paan Singh Tomar. What a movie that is!

It's so convincing with the fact that a man whose achievements have brought some worldwide recognition to the nation, had to turn into a bandit, a goon, to get what he deserved; we empathize with that emotion, don't we?

We do that many times 'be bad to be good!' kinda thing. Reminds me of Bareilly ki Barfi, somehow, the role of Ayushman Khurana and what he does to woo the girl he loves; at some point in the film he is the villain and a hero, but at the end, he gets the girl, convincingly or rather shockingly! I mean it sounds confusing and chaotic, isn't it?  But is that correct!?

Mr. Mehta (director of Omerta) stated that his intention behind making Omerta was to explore evil as a "human characteristic". He further said that he wanted to leave the audience with a sense of "awe, disgust, hate, surprise" and to examine the "ramifications of these (terror) events on their lives today." Mehta called the villain of the film, Omar Sheikh, the "Hannibal" of terrorism who could be planning how to outwit you even while talking to you."

Rajkumar Rao said," ...easily the toughest character'.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui said, "Character of Raman Raghav emptied me from within".

I understand, its art; as a painter uses all seven colors and their combinations to create art, similarly, an actor must use 'nav-rasa' or 'nine-emotions' and their combinations to create characters, but at what cost? I am not against it, being a design professional and a theatre enthusiast, I understand the creative hunger of an artist, but these self-pleasing characters/films are affecting the society we live in. Can't say in a good way or a bad way, but they are certainly affecting somewhere, and the effect is slow, unnoticeable.

To be more specific let's look upon this artist, Marina Abramovic, a performance artist, she stood still for six hours to let people do what they wanted to her body. What followed was an astonishing study in the psychology of the human mind; first, only the press came near her, but as time passed, people made her sit, lie-down, torn her clothes, put a gun on her throat, humiliated her in all sorts of ways possible, there.

The point here is if we are made to break free, it will result in an unmanageable chaos. A 'chaos' that we first have to figure out is morally correct, hence this chaos; or we are morally wrong, hence this chaos.

Either way, I cannot stop or interrupt the proceedings of the world, let alone solving its conflicts, but I feel as a spectator of all this chaos, like 'Sanjaya' in 'Mahabharata' and tell out to those who are listening.

There are still movies like Padman, Neerja, Airlift etc. and many more who are equally balancing this see-saw, but the result of this is unknown, we cant say today that what kind of films India will make in the near future. Where are we headed to?

For now, I just can't take out the scene from my mind where Omar (Rajkumar Rao) cuts the throat of a journalist with that devilish look in his eyes, that scene has haunted me and is the sole reason I had to address this topic; true!, its a movie, hence dramatised, but it has effects and as is, we haven't yet achieved Utopia.

Until next time.

Akash

PS:

Let me know how did you like it and as I always say, its all open to suggestions and criticism.

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Refrence from:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Nawazuddin-Siddiqui-Character-of-Raman-Raghav-emptied-me-from-within/articleshow/52796915.cms

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6978268/

https://www.elitereaders.com/performance-artist-marina-abramovic-social-experiment/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R8kL3k4fd0 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omerta_(film) 

http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/omerta-director-hansal-mehta-rajkummar-rao-5097789/