Being Anant Velankar – Ardha Satya – Character Analysis
Being Anant Velankar – Ardha Satya – Character Analysis
For those who do not know who’ve never heard of a guy called Anant Velankar, they MUST watch this film called Ardhasatya.
Here’s a story synopsis (Courtsey imdb and allmovie)
Anant Velankar(Om Puri) is a character quite like most of us. The honest trier with a fucked up past, a troubled relationship with his dad (Amrish Puri), forced into doing something where his soul isn’t, every effort to uphold his belief in an entity ends up in that very entity undermining his belief – very much like a vicious circle, suffering from a mood/confidence swinging complex, a struggle between addiction to alcohol and attraction for his lady love, an unimaginable abhorrence for any atrocity committed against women, a realisation of what demon he could become (Nasseruddin shah in a sparkling cameo as Inspector Mike Lobo), a mashocistic persona, and a slightly egoistic warrior being tortured by the war within him between his MASCULINE SELF & IMPOTENCY/HELPLESSNESS/INCAPABALITY to do anything.
Boy oh boy i love this character. Here’s a character study. Thank you for creating such a character on celluloid Govind nihlani, Om Puri and Vijay Tendulkar sahib.
AV with his DAD (Amrish Puri)——————————————-
I love this relationship because I’ve seen it closely in someone’s life. That a son is more intimate towards his mom than his dad, is well known. But what might not be well known is that a son ma have a big reservoir of resentment wrt his dad, for any reason whatsoever. There is always an ego between a son and a dad (but perhaps not that much between a mom and her son). AV hates his dad since dad was a wife beater, MCP, and an authoritative person. He forced AV into Police service to upheld the pride of their family. AV instead wanted to get into Literature, but he had no choice.
As AV’s life spirals down, his dad comes to stay with him, as usual lecturing him on how to lock the house in a city like Bombay, how to get transfer back to his village, why a cop’s wife should’nt be beautiful, how AV’s prospective bride is not beautiful but “HEALTHY” !!!
When Dad and AV sit together for a drink and for the first time in his life, Dad praises AV; AV rages back at his dad accusing him of being a wife beater. Call it misplaced anger or call it all the built up frustration against his Dad, AV loses it !!! I love that scene.
The next scene shows AV covering his sleeping Dad with a blanket (Yeah i know its a bit of a cliche but what the heck !!!)
These two scenes summarise the relationship between Anant Velankar and his father.
AV with his Mentor Senior Inspector Haider (Shafi Inamdaar) —————–
Haider is a practical cop and a guy who even “sleeps with his eyes open” unlike the impulsive and righteous AV. AV cannot tolerate injustice. Haider however, is different. In fact he is indifferent to everything and yet not completely not indifferent. He is quite detached to the happenings and yet somehow has the solutions to every problem. His solution – Don’t do anything !!!
In a more filmy manner may I say – Haider is a seasoned prostitute, fucked up many times, and just does his job; & AV is yet a virgin. AV can’t understand the politics behind the police system, or lets say AV is troubled by it. Hyder is cynical, sarcastic, practical and worldly wise.
Haider acts his mentor, friend, philosopher, guide; bailing AV out from a few itchy situtations. But the treat is when AV gets suspended towards the end and AV helplessly asks (begs) Haider
AV – “Sir Is it possible for you to use your Delhi contacts ?”
Haider- “I’d rather not do it and save my ass !!!”
I told u, attached and yet detached.
AV with his girlfriend Jyotsna (Smita Patil) —————————
Two words – Platonic and supporting
She is the silent listener of AV’s problems and understands him. She hates his drinking bouts (Why do all women do that ??).
An intellectual foil for AV. AV needs her more than she needs him. Jyotsana’s eyes are forever searching AV…. searching for his true emotions … his inner thoughts … reasoning with him .. debating with him … She’s neither a “pseudo intellectual” (unlike the men in her college/library) .. nor a “carefree following her heart” woman..neither a hopeless romantic nor an idealist/practicalist …. or may be a bit of all of them.
AV sees in her a sort of guilt-redemption for himself…for his DAD…for his lost degree in Literature….Guess another reason why AV likes her, since she also has an intrest in poetry. (By the way most of Govind nihlani’s film’s have a female who is in love with poetry/literature. Be it Thakshak-Tabu, Ardhasatya-Smita, Dev-Kareena)
All that AV wants is to talk to her endlessly ..and all that Jyotsna wants to do is to listen to him endlessly, and give feedback when solicited.For her, AV would take an expensive hotel tea on a “date” .. he will offer her a taxi .. take her to musical shows. Not that AV can afford it that much, but may be in the startingphase of the relationship you see the slightly less self confident/trying to look good guy.
And yet he beats up a goon (THAT WAS ASHISH VIDYARTHI BY THE WAY !!!) in a bus for eve teasing jyotsna.
And yet he calls her up when he is drunk .. or sober .. so that he can talk to her and keep her updated on his life and keep taking “feedback”
Ahhhh man wish i had a Jyotsna in my life
AV with his Inspector Mike Lobo (Nasserrudin Shah) —————–
In my 2nd year of computer engineering, I had learnt a word called RECURSION.
Here’s a wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion
Me and my brother while watching Ardhasatya in the wee hours at night had ‘rediscovered‘ this word in Cinema… after seeing Mike Lobo’s character. We coined Recursion in Cinema as
” A character A (Anant Velankar) is in contrast with another character B (Mike Lobo). Perchance A meets B somehwere sometime. B leaves and A continues with his life … and eventually due to circumstances in his life, he becomes B. i.e his character becomes like that of B. ”
AV sees ML in a bar, drunk and creating a ruckus. In his downward spiral later, AV himself, drunk and tormented by the police system, creates a ruckus in the very same bar. AV becomes what ML used to be. AV starts off as a rightoues no nonsense cop (what ML once used to be !!!) … ML has lost it now and resigned to the system. AV loses it too as the film progresses.
ML’s wife dies and he doesn’t even have money to bury her. ML begs for money from other police colleagues, and remains dead drunk all the time…which is what AV becomes towards the end of the film.
ML dies somewhere, some place, lost out by the system. At the end of the film when AV surrenders to the polics, we all realise that his fate will not be different. Both are met with the same fate.
(Hmmmm Recursion !!! The joys of being a Tam-Brahm-Maths student. Things become clearer to you)
AV relationship with himself ————————————-
Throughout the film, one can sense AV’s need to BE someone. His emphasis on Masculinity and the need to prove to everyone that he is right. He is an honest cop and does not sacrifice his ideals for the fear of “looking less of a man in his own self esteem“.
Even when he bashes up a few goons in lock up, and he comes out, his body language changes and he boasts to his colleagues “Two of them cannot even recognize themsleves !!” .
When he loses out the medal to the other cop (from some other department), you can see the frustration and defeat written on his face.
He eventually has no option but to go and seek help from Shetty, the same guy who he had threatened and dared to insult. He kills him in a fit of rage when Shetty asks him to become his gang informer. AV can die/be hanged/face trial but he will not bend down to Shetty. It seems like the first instance of Howard Roark on Indian celluloid.
Ahhhhhhh the pleasures of seeing films written by Vijay Tendulkar and directed by Govind Nihlani.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
The return of KK
You made us wait for such long time dude….this is brilliant. Why?
1. Because after a long time you are writing dil se
2. Because of your admiration for the character does a chalak chalak…pours out here
3. Doing a thorough research
4. For bringing something exxxtremely new on pfc…all the kudos bro….
Loved it..gonna read again..and again…
hey Karthik, whr hav u been all this time, this review has indeed come ater a long time. gud one though. Do u guys watch the short movies tat comes at 10:30 pm on star-one these days, saw one yesterday, it was on how a movie can be made and also be a hit, it was a mindless movie but all the same enjoyable. Its gud break frm the shit tat goes around these days on TV, news channels r far more intersting and exciting with all the breaking stuff.
Ardh satya indeed is a gr8 movie but i feel the howard roak stuff has been repeated many a times in movies, now fountain head is gr8 book wen u r reading it for the first time, next time onwards u start getting bored and i some how felt tat AYN Rand ne chutiya kata hai sabka is kitaab mein. If sucess reallty didnt matter to him all throughout the book, then why suddenly he bursts out in the end. Leaving everything aside, lookin forward eagerly for 6:00 pm BHEJA FRY!!!!!!!!
Vinay Pathak and Ranvir Shorey r gods of comedy today in Indian Movies.
Ahhh..only if Smita was alive or hindi film industry had an actress with half as talent as what Smita had…..god promise….Govind wouldnt have cast Kareena in Dev….
Smita and om….what a wierd combination on paper…but..full marks to Govind for casting them..and as they say rest is History…..damn it Smita could act opposite a stone…
Shool was not a bad tribute to Ardh Satya…and manoj did not dissapoint….raveena too wasnt bad as i had expected…well she does have some acting genes…she never itched them…
Yes, very good character sketch indeed
Looking forward to more active writing.
And taking a cue from the first para, gonna put this on my ‘Must’ watch list..
@ Rads.. you havent seen Ardha Satya? :o :o is it poora Satya?
Sorry i am on a roll after the hallucination i had earlier in the evening…
dude i think ‘RECURSION’ in term of programming means something which call itself again and again.so i am not getting your point here.
anyway well written article. =d>=d>=d>=d>
OM – very very very intresting point.
Shool – Ardhasatya. Although it was publicised as new age “Zanjeer” but actually it bore resemblance to Ardhasatya.
We all know how anurag was influenced by Howard Roark in the inital stages of his writing career. And ramu too wanted to make something like that with Satya.
In fact even Company was influenced by Kalyug(Dir -shyaam benegal,DOP – Govind nihlani)and Ardhasatya. Ramu himself admits that.
One thing i specifically remember is whenever a cop (mohanlal or inspector rathod) asked any gang member what their names are, the person would always say “Chandu” etc .. and then the cop would say “Poora”. This way of showing off by a cop(Om puri) was also there in ardhasatya.
Yaar Kalyug? Company was influenced? I dont know how dude?
kalyug was scene to scene mahabharath..without Draupadi….as RK said in his post of Utsav..indeed Sashi kapoor was trying to bring in a lot of creativeness…He was the wave back then…
Dude – shatrughan …. Recursion indeed means something calling itself again.
(Pls pardon the jargon)
Ala 10! = 10 * (10-1)!
9! = 9 * (9 -1)!
The point is that Naseer(presently drunk & defeated from system, who used to be no nonsense and honest/rightoues cop)comes into the film and meets Om puri (who is currently a no nonsense/honest and rightoues cop)..
Eventually, trhough circumstances, Om becomes like Naseer (drunken stupor/ defeated and cynical from the system)!!!
i know technically it may not be called Recursion but what the hell .. don’t u see a similarity ???
Thanks. hope u got the point
Yeah OM – Jaideep sahni (writer of Company) himself openly says that he and Ramu were influenced by Kalyug (at the FTII Screenwriters conference).
Check out the links for more info
http://www.desitrain.com/2006/08/23/when-the-gods-of-screenwriting-met-part-1/
http://www.desitrain.com/2006/08/24/when-the-gods-of-screenwriting-met-part-2/
Actually i completely took ‘RECURSION’ as in programming term so due to this i was not getting your view.wasie in better manner we can say that a function is calling to another function :d
thanks kartik for your great explanation.
Kya yaar shatru !!!!
This is what i call “Willing suspension of Disbelief” or “Cinematic liberty” to use a mathematical term in cinema.
Kya bolta hai ??? :d
No need for thanks – im always ready for maths explanations. I love it :x
Howard Roark ??!!
thats stratching it a bit K.
but hell u can still watch arth satya and get goosebumps
doesnt any1 of u see star-one 10:30 pm short movies….i njoy watching it…its a bit childish but still njoy, seeking ur feedbak.
yes yaar i am completely agree with u.
due to engineering background,Mathematics is my hobby and due to Intellectual “Bhook” books and cinema are my passion.
wasie guru kartik if you want to use mathematics term in cinema as
hey,
good post. But i think mentioning Howard Roark in AV’s character sketch is.. going a bit overboard. Though i havnt seen this movie but i’v read Rand’s fine work. HR never let helplessness and incapability get the better of him. I havnt really seen the indianised version of HR as yet.
infact Shwets he does at the fag end…and tats my question….
Shweta and Kaafir- yes HR never lets helplessness and incapability get the better of him.
But you cannot deny that there are similarities to both of them.
HR is not just about a person. Its an idea. The idea of not compromising to your principles and designs.
Hey Karthik,
I was just happy to note that you thought of writing about this character.
My favourite scene is when he is bashing the people who are on strike …Smitha watches him turn into this monster!!! A very insightful scene..
I wish you had elaborated on the poem “Ardh Satya”, Smitha reads to him in the restaurant.
Areh Kartik… kitni yaadein taaza kar di aapne.. I had seen the film in the mid-80’s, when I was a chota nanha bacha… didn’t quite get it… all I could do was ask Dad “Daaru peene se bahaut gussa aata hai naa?” (the Naseer bar incident)
Later when I was older, I sat with my friend and we watched, and analyzed the film over a few drinks… and that’s when we started to know why the film is so great and considered such a classic…
I haven’t seen the film since, but your character study (so well written/analyzed) has brought it back so vividly… I think I might steal some time to watch it again this weekend…
well kartik like i said earlier, i havnt seen the movie. For HR i would say, i read the book almost five year back, and i wont say it influenced me rather it took its toll over me. It haunts me even today. the damage was done the very minute i picked up the book. HR for me is a fantasy, a world in himself, something beyond words. i wonder whether such beings acutally exist.. hence i’v never really approved of any character in any movie or book being compared to HR. if u read such books in ur formative years, they kinda become a part of u. So i guess AV and HR, should be left on their own. for its subjective and debatable.
Guys i was talking to Kartik last night and he said that Jaideep Sahni told him that Company had influences from Kalyug. Now, Kalyug was one of my favorite movies for the fact that nothing has been written better than Mahabharath and Shashi and Shyam did a wonderful job of adapting from it. But, i honestly do not find any remote connections between Kalyug and Company… your help will be appreciated..this sawaal has been haunting me….Needa see Kalyug again over the weekend
Dear friends,
Cant think of a better description for ardhasatya.amazing..only a sharp digital brain of a computer engineer kud hv done this.Though an engineer by profession,i let myself being carried away while watching movies. Ardhasatya is my all time favorite.Velanker is the object under observation in a large system.(mostly)how the system affects velanker and (scantly)how velanker affects the system is the story.the most memorable scene is d 1 where AV reads the poetry”krity se pehele aaya vichaar” and “taraazu ke ek palade mein”.the later one is the theme of this movie.