In a pivotal scene in Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Part 1, Yash, as Ravana, is pondering his next course of action.
His sister Surpanakha has come to him seeking retribution because Lakshman has angrily slashed at her face. Should Ravana exert patience or consider the violence an act of war?
Tiwari interprets Ravana’s 10 heads as a conversation he has with as many versions of himself, each offering differing advice. Yash is, by turns, angry, haughty, passive, ferocious. It is masterfully
In a pivotal scene in Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Part 1, Yash, as Ravana, is pondering his next course of action.
His sister Surpanakha has come to him seeking retribution because Lakshman has angrily slashed at her face. Should Ravana exert patience or consider the violence an act of war?
Tiwari interprets Ravana’s 10 heads as a conversation he has with as many versions of himself, each offering differing advice. Yash is, by turns, angry, haughty, passive, ferocious. It is masterfully enacted and masterfully staged. The actor is, quite literally, a many-splendored thing.
This is also what one feels watching him in Geetu Mohandas’s Kannada film Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, released in August. There, he plays both the brutal mafioso Raya and his son Rumi aka Ticket, who was abandoned as a child and now seeks revenge.
In the climax, it is revealed that Rumi is Raya, a hyper-violent alter-ego that emerged from within Raya to destroy Raya. It is an audacious narrative leap that underlines the empty glory of violence and generational trauma. The film was co-written by Yash and he is sensational in both roles.
Toxic was a big swing that didn’t land. Reports suggest it is likely to lose about ₹300 crore; it still hasn’t been sold to streaming.
Which takes me back to the iconic speech US President Theodore Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1910. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better,” he said. “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
The entertainment business is filled with cold and timid souls; storytellers who seek security via repetition. Actors, directors and producers who play it safe because the goal is box-office numbers, not excellence. Yash isn’t one of them.
In an interview in 2024, I asked him how he decided, after the gargantuan success of the KGF films (Chapters 1 and 2; 2018 and 2022) that his next film should be one by Mohandas, a director known for telling thorny, singular stories that usually premiere at film festivals. KGF 2 alone, after all, made about ₹1,250 crore at the box office.
He said: “It’s pretty basic. I just look at the passion and what kind of project it is.” When I asked if people around him were worried about the choice, he said, “I don’t listen to anybody. I listen to my heart…I really enjoy trying to chase the unknown. That’s the thrill of it.”
He offered the analogy of Kaun Banega Crorepati, in which contestants reach a point when the stakes are so high that Amitabh Bachchan starts to ask if they want to play it safe, rest on their winnings and stop playing; or continue and risk it all, in the hopes of doing even more.
Yash pointed out that life offers the same choices, and he will always choose to risk it all.
Which is perhaps why he is also co-producer on both Toxic and Ramayana: Part 1.
Toxic, incidentally, was also shot in English. That version performed so poorly that it was pulled from theatres in a week. But Yash clearly has global ambitions.
At the Los Angeles premiere of Ramayana: Part 1 last week, he said one’s start should never define how far one can go.
What thrills me is the audacity and the striving. I wish there were more like him.
(Email feedbackforanu@gmail.com. The views expressed are personal)
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