Aurangzeb :the Film

Aurangzeb: The Film  

We come across a good film these days by chance, thanks to their churning out at a speed faster than rolls of fabrics  in textile mills. Though the word ‘good’ by itself  has hundreds of connotations,   the film that I saw and   I am calling  good is for the choice of its title. Film “Aurangzeb”  when put on the screen at home, the   thought that crossed at first  was  that  one more  historical magnum  opus in the sequence of Jodha –Akbar is on cards . But it turned out to be  different.

 I had to admire the ingenuity of its producers for  the metaphorical use of the name of the  Mughal Emperor  as  its title , basing the theme  on a ‘quote’  by him  when he   usurped the throne through  an open bloody revolt against his Emperor father,   annihilating Dara Shikho , the legitimate claimant as successor , and  his other two  brothers.

 “Badshahat bhaichara nahi  dekhti ” (Kingdom does bother about brotherhood)  are  the words quoted in the film as central to the theme while the message is packaged in the punch line-“Apno ki keemat Sapnon se ziada hoti hai” (Value of kinship  is much higher than the value of  dreams)  ’-  with which the film begins  and with which it ends .

 Not that  the film is any better than others  in terms of cinematographic  qualities, such a film certainly goes  beyond the realm of entertainment just for sheer choice of its  theme and title. The script writer , director and other creative artistes have taken pains to project  how  ‘greed’, verging on the rapacity of plunderers, corrupts a person to an extent that he does not hesitate to shoot his own son who, inadvertently though, without any inkling of his father’s complicity in the series of  murders for retaining his pelf and power, tries to take his DCP father in confidence.

Let there be a  property and you can see  brothers of yesterday turning into an alien of  today and  tomorrow, if not exactly the foes. Peeling off the crust of  finer emotions  of  love and respect , with not a smite on their conscience, they move  away, far away, from those for whom they were ready to shed blood on a single call. When it comes to material wealth and property , it takes no time for many of the good Samritans to become  Aurangzebs living on the false notion that Aurangzeb carried the throne to the next world.

The redeeming part, however , is that there also exist characters (as  played in the film  by Anupam Kher) who die heroically  having lived  with the conviction that “Apno ki keemat Sapnon se ziada hoti hai”.  May their clan expand for the survival of the civilization or else  this world will stand reduced to a jungle of selfish and self centred brutes.