A lot of rage, a bit of Rang de

Street protests, candlelight crusades, student petition campaigns triggered off by what was shown in the film undeniably had an impact, reports Vinayak Chakravorty.

It opened as just another Bollywood movie at the box-office, on a nippy February morning. The Aamir Khan tag brought limelight in its wake, and the youth flavour that the promos peddled guaranteed initials.

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Almost 10 months later, Rang De Basanti is more than a superhit Hindi film gunning for Oscar glory. In an era when films had stopped making a difference, director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s feature ended up as a generation’s wake-up call — quite simply living up to the poster punchline.

Bollywood is about big budget, bigger moneymaking drills. But when a script like Rang De… connects with its core audience (in this case, the youth), inciting them take to the streets for a cause that isn’t solely about selfish gains, you know it’s special.

In this context, Rang De… comes to the fore once again in the wake of two successive, high profile legal decisions: the Jessica Lal murder case and the Priyadarshini Mattoo rape-and-murder case. Street protests, candlelight crusades, student petition campaigns triggered off by what was shown in the film undeniably had an impact.