SUNDAY POST JAN 18-27
Piyush Roy
Think of Tevar, and you only think of Manoj Bajpai. One of Bollywood’s finest actors, he shines again to rise way above a mediocre script, and how. This, in spite of the film offering a fairly entertaining hero act by Arjun Kapoor, and some impressive cameos by Raj Babbar and Subrat Dutta (as Bajpai’s right hand man Kakdi).
Some films are inherently great with achievements in all or most departments of film craft, and hence you watch them again and again. But some not so great films too become worthy of a repeat watch, purely for the lure of a performance or two that lend a certain desirability, even if the larger narrative is laden with repeating dramas.
Tevar is typical masala fare. There is a bad guy, there is a good guy, and there is a girl in-between, who both fight over to win. It’s a plot that’s been repeated for the umpteenth time. Still why do we watch it? The charm lies in what its latest interpreters have on offer. Bajpai’s few scenes in the film’s trailer were enough attraction for me. It held the promise of a good act with ample style, if not substance. Onscreen, as a Mathura-based Bahubali, Gajendra Singh, Bajpai laces his act with ample substance too. He may not look the conventional Bahubali or muscleman in this day and age of six and eight pack sporting extras. Yet he exudes a menace that would make an interested viewer restless about his intentions, even jittery about his next move. Because the threat is not from an imposing body or the obvious, but one emanating from the mind and the unexpected! But the surprise element is that he also becomes as soft as mellow. Savour the scene where he professes love – and as his love interest in the film Sonakshi Sinha admits jokingly – he does exude a blush to die for…
You know he is a rogue, and yet your sympathies are with him. You feel for the genuineness of his hurt, just as you did for Shah Rukh Khan’s character in Darr. But Shah Rukh’s adorable rogue had happened in his ‘cute’ 20s. That you can find an ‘in his 40s’, Bajpai too, cute and adorable as a rogue is the true mark and toast of the power of a powerhouse actor.
Bajpai is an actor in the league of a Sanjeev Kumar or an Om Puri – ordinary looking but very convincing in whichever part they play. He first won our hearts and commanded our attention as Bhiku Mhatre, another lovable baddie in Satya, where he wasn’t even playing the lead. 15 years down the line, the character that we remember Satya most for is not its brooding protagonist (played by Chakravarthy), but for Bajpai’s boisterous Bhiku Mhatre. Since Satya, he has offered many more admirable shades to Bhiku, the most recent being Gangs of Wasseypur.
He has also made a mark in positive, lead (e.g. Shool and Chittagong) and character roles (Kaun, Vedam, Special 26 and Pinjar, for which he also bagged a National award). Of late, his characters on the other side of the righteous edge have come to be most appreciated, especially as the lone, impactful counter energy in all of Prakash Jha’s recent multi-starrers – Raajneeti, Aarakshan and Satyagraha. In Raajneeti, Bajpai alone was pitted opposite the likes of Arjun Rampal, Ranbir Kapoor and Nana Patekar; in Aarakshan against Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone and in Satyagraha, against Amitabh, Ajay Devgun, Arjun Rampal and Kareena Kapoor. To be able to stand up as the lone negative counter against a formidable force of positives throughout the length of a fiction film’s drama generating events is no small challenge or achievement! It’s not for nothing that Bajpai has been a consistent choice for playing a worthy counter force to veteran Amitabh Bachchan in some of his most dramatic conflict films in recent years (Aks, Aarakshan, and Satyagraha). For a hero like Rama to shine in full glory, you need a villain of the mettle of a Ravana, no less!
That’s why Bollywood should preserve and think of more acting provocations worthy of an actor like Bajpai that keep him busy and around, even if it is in Tevar like entertainments. Tevar is no classic; neither does it harbour any aspirations of being one of the films of the year. It’s a predictable ‘action-emotion, revenge-retribution, good wins over evil song-and-dance’ cocktail, packed and served fairly well for the few hours that one opts to view it for a break or time pass entertainment.
But if anyone would at all revisit Tevar after its 2015 release expiry, it will be to simply savour again the madness of Manoj Bajpai as Bahubali Gajendra Singh, just as one would like to enjoy again the onscreen moments of Prakash Raj in Singham, Amole Gupte in Kaminey, Ashutosh Rana in Sangharsh, Shah Rukh Khan in Darr, Sadashiv Amrapurkar in Sadak… Take out these ‘villains’ and is there much left in these films for repeat relish… Think about it?