Anandita Dudeja
5. PK Dubey – Monsoon Wedding
Anything with Vijay Raaz in it, I can watch a thousand times over. But, Dubeyji is a very very special character. Mira Nair captured on celluloid the eccentricity of Delhi’s paradox. In the backdrop of an upper-middle class punjabi wedding, lower middle class representative Dubeyji is someone we’re accustomed to everyday in the nooks and corners of our life. Sunglasses, marigold, his ever-ringing phone were not enough quirks for Mira Nair to make a statement that she had to make Dubeyji fall in love with Alice, the beautiful house-help who happens to begin exploring the beauty of her womanhood as this narrative escalates on the sidelines, much like the lives of the lower-middle class. Dubeyji’s character is where Monsoon Wedding struck gold, and didn’t even take time to realize it.
4. Ramadhir Singh – Gangs of Wasseypur
“Hindustan main jab tak cinema hai, log chutiya bante rahenge” Tigmanshu Dhulia, wow. Anurag Kashyap writes narratives out of reality and so his characters are more like people we cross paths with instead of fictional personalities.
Ramadhir Singh is the politician we see on news debate hours every now and then, but he has his quirks which are so unique to the person he is. Ramadhir Singh is not a character, he is a real person and Tigmanshu Dhulia embodies him, and how.
3. Tehmur – Talaash
In an otherwise dark backdrop, Tehmur was a breath of fresh air, while still being all shades of dark. If I ever have to rate Nawaz’s performances, this will definitely top the charts. Talaash leaves you immensely sad, but I kept on thinking about this character in particular for days. All aspects of character writing were paid attention to with utmost perfection and that is next to impossible to achieve in the world of character development. I’m still conflicted over what caught my eye more, Nawaz’s genius craft or Reema Kagti’s brilliant writing. Not the best movie on this list, sure, but from the perspective of writing this is hands down the best character we’ve been accustomed to, in the recent years.
2. Prithvi Bana – Gulaal
Sometimes, movies are remembered because of a certain character that took the world by a storm in the context of the movie’s narrative. Prithvi Bana made Gulaal, despite the fact that it had an array of acting talent, a great script, a revolutionary director and everything was in order for the movie to be called a result of the parallel cinema. I was forced to think how troubled a human being Kashyap must been to have write this character, and so, when I met Piyush Mishra, I asked him this. Nonetheless, Prithvi Bana is a character I dream to write because of all the layers of depth hidden in it while he plays the eccentric joker.
1. Bhiku Mhatre – Satya
This is where we can mark the beginning of Manoj Bajpai’s career as the acclaimed actor that he is today.
What happens with any medium of art is, you might forget the story but always remember what it made you feel, especially if that feeling was rare and special. With Satya, I remember nothing of it except Bhiku Mhatre. There is no need to explain why this character tops the charts because I’ve literally seen people writing papers on this character, for it is the textbook education for anyone wanting to write a legendary character. It was one of the rarest of times when a character became a phenomenon while the movie lagged back.
The excitement with which I write about these characters only makes me revisit what they made me feel, but there is a hitch and a very evident one. I tried hard looking for female characters of equal caliber and I might have found a few but they were nowhere near beating any of these and the flaw lies on a holistic level. There have been strong parts written for women recently, as protagonists. But, for character roles, writers have been lazy and ill-equipped to give a female perspective to their narrative because of the dearth of women in cinema. Women are half of the globe, and so they require to be treated like that, even when it comes to fiction.
We are evolving, sure.
But, what we really need is a female writer to give her perspective and enhance the characters, and add life to them.
Female Tehmur’s and Bhiku Mhatre’s exist and I’m hoping we’re prepared to witness how women can be horrible, dark human beings too. Female characters need to stop either being put on a pedestal or straight up victims of patriarchy because as an audience we need to view them as normal human beings who might have had a troubled childhood. Years ago, people protested when Kajol was shown to be the killer in Gupt because how can a woman commit murder. Guess what, considering all the oppression there technically should be more female serial killers because of years of abuse.
Bottom line, we’re getting better but we need to try harder. Meanwhile, I will keep looking for a lady in the movies who could beat these men because the writer’s conditioning wasn’t biased.
