Hey Ram 2000

An experiment with truth

Saketh Ram's wife is raped and killed during direct action day riots in Calcutta. He is convinced that Mahatma Gandhi is responsible for all the problems happening in the country. He sets out to kill him.

Hey Ram is the story of Saket Ram (Kamal Haasan), an archaeologist. He is on a dig in pre-partition Harappa with his buddy Amjad (Shah Rukh Khan) when communal violence erupts in the region and the dig is closed down. Saket Ram goes off to Calcutta to visit his new wife Aparna (Rani Mukherjee). Calcutta is in chaos with religious strife and Ram's wife is brutally assaulted and killed by some Muslim men a few days after his return. He becomes unstable and seeks out the perpetrators of the crime and deals with them. While wandering the streets Ram meets with Abhyankar (Atul Kulkarni) who tells him that his family has suffered a similar fate and that the one man responsible for all this is MK Gandhi. Ram goes off to Tamil Nadu and after seeing Maithili (Vasundhara Das) agrees to marry her. All the time he is still traumatized by Aparna's death and planning revenge. When Abhyankar is paralyzed in a polo accident Ram vows to take his place as the killer of the Mahatma. He moves to Delhi and there he re-encounters his friend Amjad. Now hatred for Muslims and his prior closeness to Amjad are at war and Ram must choose his path - will it be the road to revenge or redemption? The story is excellent and the movie manages to retain its grip on the viewer for over three hours. The direction is for the most part very good. There are a few strange moments that seemed unnecessary to me - why is there the surreal stuff when Ram is shown with Maithili? The Marathi dance seemed unnecessary. Why were the bullets in a cartridge in a pre-partition handgun? Can one talk after one's throat is sliced open? But these are indeed minor quibbles in an overall excellent film.

The background score is a bit intrusive, the songs not memorable. Maybe this is not the best of the Maestro Illayaraja. The beginning song/dance in the club is sort of silly, certainly not needed. Surely bonding between friends can be shown in other ways.

Acting is very good throughout. For me the outstanding performance was given by Rani Mukherjee. She breathed life into Aparna and was at her most attractive and charming as a Bengali Bodhu! Kamal was very good. He showed love, passion, anger, rage, madness very well. And what looks at nearly age 50! The man is awesome. Shah Rukh gave a great performance as Amjad - a very restrained and balanced performance that in the end showed us which path Ram would choose and why. Atul Kulkarni was awesome as the fanatical Abhyanker. Vasundhara Das was luminous and did an excellent job playing Maithili. Naseer Shah as Gandhi, Hema Malini as the mother were all very good. In fact there was no bad performance in the film.

This is a fine piece of movie making and deserves all the accolades it got. If you have not yet seen this film then you are in for a rare treat.




National Film Awards, India
Year Result Award Category/Recipient(s)
2000 Won Silver Lotus Award Best Costume Designer
Sarika


Best Special Effects
Manthra


Best Supporting Actor
Atul Kulkarni


The movie begins at present day with Saketh Ram (Kamal Haasan), an 89-year-old South Indian Brahmin who is dying. The scene reverts back to the past as Saketh remembers the 1940's, when he and his good friend, Amjad Ali Khan (Shahrukh Khan) were archaeologists working together under their boss, Mortimer Wheeler, in Mohanjodaro (Indus River Valley Civilization) in Karachi. Relations are pleasant between the Indians and the English, and Saket and Amjad do not approve of the Partition and the creation of Pakistan. Aparna Sen, Saketh's simple Bengali wife is living in Calcutta in the midst of riots and chaos over the issue of the formation of Pakistan. Saket goes to Calcutta and is swept into the madness. In one instance, Saket saves an innocent Punjabi girl from the hands of a Muslim gang. The Muslims are angered and decide to take revenge; the group is headed by Aparna's tailor, Altaf, who break into Saket's home. They brutally rape and maliciously slit Rani's throat, and the scene, so vividly shot, leaves little for the imagination. This itself turns Saketh Ram maniacal and puts him on a wild killing spree, avenging his wife's disgrace and killing every possible Muslim in sight. On his apparent sortie he comes across a bunch of right-winged Hindu fundamentalists, led by Abhyankar (Atul Kulkarni). Abhyankar preaches him about the need of the Hindus to come together and save their brethren from the Islamists who according to them are mere intruders from across the Khyber.. He soon joins fanatical Hindus and loses sense of himself, falling victim to the chaos and religious hatred around him. He is also urged to marry again and agrees to it reluctantly. Mahatma Gandhi (Naseeruddin Shah) is solely blamed for the division of India and of the two religions. His wrath gets the better of him as he pledges to take revenge co-opted by the Hindutva Brigade and he travels from Calcutta to Madras to kill Mahatma Gandhi. There he meets his second wife (Vasundhara Das) , another light eyed beauty. Saketh Ram does not love her but only marries her under his father's (Kavignar Vaali) orders. Saket Ram is entrusted the task of killing Mahatma Gandhi, after his friend Abhyankar is left paralyzed in a freak accident. He has a change of heart only when he falls prey to a bunch of Muslims, where he also meets old chum Amjad Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), an ardent Gandhi admirer. At the climax, Saketh Ram is prepared to murder Mahatma Gandhi but is stopped by Amjad. He later realizes that without Gandhi, India would be destroyed. He goes up to Gandhi and begs for forgiveness but Gandhi says he has to go and that he has no time for his apologies. When Gandhi is about to leave, a young man approaches and kills Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi with a gun. The movie ends with the old Saketh Ram, slowly dying on his death bed.