Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 8, 2019)

The war of words during campaigning, the wisdom of choices during electioneering and the political wheeling-dealing during government formation are all top of the mind given that it’s not even been a month since the 17th Lok Sabha elections, which makes Prakash Jha’s Raajneeti apt for this week’s column. The film opened on June 4, 2010 and with parallels from the Mahabharat, showcased a bloody battle for power.

“You can’t showcase the Mahabharat in two-and-a-half hours of screen time. But since I was telling a story about family politics, I thought of drawing out the texture of the epic drama which is a part of our socio-cultural fabric and encompasses every aspect of human life. Raajneeti is just a section of the Mahabharat, finding similes in some of its characters and their actions,” Prakash ji points out, almost a decade later.

As the eldest of the 100 Kauravas, Duryodhan, was undoubtedly the muse for Manoj Bajpayee’s character, Veerendra Pratap, the designated Chief Ministerial candidate of the Rashtrawadi Party. “He’s someone destined to be king, till his father takes his legacy away,” is how Prakash ji describes the character. Manoj remembers the filmmaker telling him about the film when he was waiting to receive the National Award for his performance in Pinjar. “It would be a few years before he came to me with the script and insisted on giving me a two-hour narration, asking me which of the roles I’d like to do. I immediately settled for Veerendra Pratap because I felt this would give me a chance to chalk up some grey areas and put across the perspective of Duryodhan, who has always been portrayed and judged as an all-black villain. But the fact is, that if the Pandavas were right, then so was he at times, if they were wronged, so was he,” explains Manoj.

A surprise bit of casting was Arjun Rampal as Prithviraj Pratap, “a contemporary Bheem who bulldozes everyone”, and an even bigger surprise was Katrina Kaif as Indu Pratap aka Draupadi as his wife and the lover of his younger brother Samar, the “reluctant king”, brought to life by Ranbir Kapoor. Quiz him on his unexpected choice of actors and Prakash ji admits that it was intuition which took him to Arjun who when told what he had in mind, asked, “Are you sure I can do this?” Katrina was also a part of the mainstream but then, as Prakash ji, points out, he went to Madhuri Dixit with Mrityudand when she was doing “Dhak Dhak”. “Katrina rehearsed for 25 days before the shoot, working hard on her dialogue which I’d recorded for her in my voice,” Prakashji shares.

Manoj remembers that the shoot in Bhopal was like a mela. Coming from a different kind of cinema, he was overwhelmed to see 20 vanity vans parked on the set, one of them for him. There were also huge crowds at all times and even after all these years, he marvels at Prakash ji’s handling of the star-gazers so there was never any untoward incident and he could pull off the magnum opus according to plan.

One of the highlights of the film were his fiery speeches, including the iconic “Babulalji ki hatya mehengi padegi inko, bahut mahengi…. Karara jawab milega.” Manoj reveals that Prakash ji gave him this dialogue just the night before the shoot and told him they would film the scene the following afternoon. “When I reached, I found he had placed three-four cameras. We did one rehearsal, then, canned the shot in one take. If I could pull off this performance it’s because of Prakash ji’s very vocal appreciation after every shot and Ajay’s (Devgn, who played Sooraj Kumar/Karna) silent support during our many scenes together,” says Manoj.

Prakash ji got drawn into politics, contesting from his native Champaran, but insists there is connect between reel and real-life raajneeti. Manoj confides that since Satya, he has been wooed with really tempting offers too. “But I didn’t come into the film industry to leave it all for politics. It’s been a tough journey to establish myself here despite being an outsider, create a filmography and earn name and fame for my work, and now I’m not going to throw it all away to get into something I have never done,” he reasons.

Meanwhile, Prakash ji admits he’s scripting a sequel. Manoj is excited about it though he’s quick to point out that except for Ranbir’s Samar and Katrina’s Indu all the other characters are dead. “But I’d still like to see Raajneeti 2, I’m curious to see if Prakash ji takes the story forward or scripts a new magnum opus,” he muses. For me too, this Raajneeti is just as exciting as the real thing.