With all at your disposal!

Dial 100  (Hindi; 2021)
Written & Direction: Rensil D'Silva

A few days after the news broke out that a particular member of the Khan clan was apprehended for drugs-related activities, an ardent follower asked about my opinion about the whole brouhaha. It was early into the bust, I opined that the long arm of the law should be left to spread its tentacles and take its due process.

Almost a month into the arrest, nothing seems to be moving. Aryan Khan, who was in a rave party on a yacht, is still incarcerated and denied bail. I feel sad for this 23-year-old son of Bollywood's ambassador to the world.

Many prominent figures have done worse things and had gone off on bail, awaiting trial; why not him? Is it because of the stardom that the family enjoyed and that they may have ruffled a few feathers along the way?

The officer heading the investigation is no pushover. He is a celebrated civil servant who excelled in whichever department he is attached to. He even had a run with SRK when SRK failed to declare excess baggage at an airport. This news hit the headline, and the superstar had to cough out substantial fines.

Is Khan junior being made a scapegoat here? This harsh law against drug possession was tabled in the late '60s at the height of the hippy era when people used to take a pill to sleep and another to stay awake. It was feared then that the human race would be wiped out by the end of the 20th century at the rate drugs were a menace that punitive actions deemed necessary. Unfortunately, under the guise of protecting its citizens, it also gave the powers-that-be immense clout to detain (fix) its citizen with the minuscule amount of stash. 

Rightly or wrongly, certain 'developed countries' are easing their grip on drug laws. Recreational drugs for personal consumption has been legalised. Perhaps there is a big Pharma market by medicalising weed and psychedelics.

On the parents' side, the Khans have a moral duty to protect their fallen Khan. Maybe it is the 'selfish gene', but they are within their rights to fight tooth and nail to avert detention, let it be with charm, influence or money.

That brings in nicely to the theme of this 2021 Zee produced Hindi drama. Manoj Vajpayee, still reprising his 'Family Man' role here. He appears as a police emergency hotline respondent, Senior Inspector Nikhil Sood. If talking to distressed callers and cooling them down is not enough, he must weather the storm at his domestic front. His 17-year-old son, his only child, is up to his tricks again. His mother complains that he constantly keeps late nights. Just a year previously, he had entangled himself with a drug distribution ring, and Sood had to use his clout to get him scot-free. 

In the meantime, a mysterious caller keeps bugging him during his night duty. She alleges that she has a gun and wants to kill herself. The caller actually lost her son in a hit-and-run automobile accident. The driver, a rich man's son, was high on drugs, supplied by Sood's son. The caller (and her husband) has a score to settle - to see how the Soods squirm as she shoots their only son, just as she had lost hers. She devised an elaborate tit-for-tat plan to trap Sood's son and the driver of the car.

The movie is quite dramatic but has many holes in its plot. Some viewers complained that the storyline is predictable (maybe not the ending, though). Vajpayee is typecast in a role he has done many times before - a police officer who can dictate to the whole precinct but has no control over his family.

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