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| https://sanjaymehta.me/2010/10/16/priyadarshans-aakrosh-with- ajay-devgan-tight-and-powerful/ |
I thought honour killings and caste discrimination were a thing of the past. One would say the story behind the story was topical when this movie was made, when honour killing was a frequent occurrence, especially in northern India and the northwest region of the subcontinent.
I remember reading about the time when EV Ramasamy visited Malaya back in the 1930s. He reminded the Tamil immigrant workers in Malaya to leave behind all the bad practices that they acquired from India. Caste, gender discrimination, superstition and fatalism should not be brought to their newfound land. He encouraged the Indian ladies to emulate the local ladies, don a sarong and be mobile.
In the 21st century, we do not see caste playing a significant role in the day-to-day life of Malaysian Indians. On the sly, however, people may identify with the region their ancestors came from and their spoken language. Being in the minority, they lack the clout to influence major decisions in the country on a larger scale. Social media, instead of creating a borderless one world, only helped to subdivide them into small groups that scream to find how people are different from others.
This movie had so much promise when it cast some of the most money-spinning actors at that time, including Ajay Devgn, Vinod Khanna, Bipasha Basu, Paresh Pawar, and Reema Sen. The theme was something very current at the time. There was a flurry of killings of young people along the line of honour killings.
It tells the tale of two CBI officers who were sent to a small town to investigate the disappearance of three medical students. The town is controlled by the local strongmen, who also work closely with the local policemen. They run it as if it were their own property. Cases are not investigated, and evidence is swept under the carpet to protect the crooks. One of the missing medical students was in love with the chief's daughter. As the boy was from a lower class, the father thought it befitting that he should be killed and the case be squashed.
Unfortunately, this film did not perform well at the box office despite the strong cast and gripping storyline. Probably the audience had seen too much corruption in the system to be awed. The theme of honour killing had already been in the headlines much too much to excite the general public.
