Lot of reviews of the recently released Andhadhun (2018) have covered the brilliant performances of the actors, small or otherwise, the wonderful editing by Pooja Ladha Surti, other finer aspects of the film like Trivedi’s music, references to actors of yesteryears (Anil Dhawan) and inter-textual links with other great directors like Hitchcock and Nicolas Winding Refn. There was however one aspect missing from the reviews and would like to highlight it here.
The couple of scenes where the post murder incident unfolds before Akash’s eyes were at same time, a sheer delight and compelling, thought provoking. As Akash is supposedly blind, he is witness to the raw brutality with which Simi and Manohar (her lover) treat her husband’s (Pramod Sinha) body while Akash continues to play wonderful pieces on piano. This contrast - of music and the sequence of events following the murder is very telling of our political realities. It is as if to say that blatant injustices and flagrant crimes are committed routinely, normally, with utmost ease and absence of guilt. We are strangely passive to such atrocities because our visions are betraying us; our present visions at times present us blurred worlds and more than often, we choose to close ourselves from seeing undesirable things that happen routinely, even in broad day light. Therefore, in some way, a certain kind of blindness wouldn’t hurt us. It is as if blindness is needed for it gives an insight of things not visible to a normal eye. Blindness awakens some other perceptions – be it of sound and smell and we probably need a different awakening, may be of other senses to grasp the rot of our society. May be, what we need today in Indian society is not just an awareness or a state of consciousness created by what is seen/visible to the naked eye, but instead, a state of being that is created by other heightened perceptions, by a ‘blinded’ vision.
Interestingly, unethical acts can be construed to have become a necessity given the pointlessness of ethical actions. Akash would never get an opportunity to witness the aftermath of the murder, had he been true to himself i.e. had he not played to be a blind musician. It is precisely thanks to his ‘fake’ blindness that he can access a world unknown/unseen to others – a world where everyone is greedy and morally corrupt, that he can see the perpetrators in different light, in action. Blindness thus becomes a tool of probity. However, there lies a catch in such a situation – why and importantly how to prove you are a witness to a wrong when you are yourself in a situation resulting from an unethical act? And I think this need to be morally upright, to be ethical was an issue the film couldn’t satisfactorily resolve.
If there was no apparent indication of a resolution to the issue of (un)ethical action, the film does suggest something quite cynical. Let’s see what happens at the end. Here, Akash is shown to have presumably fulfilled his dreams and is working in a European country. He is yet again, similar to his appearance in the first sequence, working as a blind musician. Life moves on, he was able to get new eyes (may be Simi’s eyes or by the sale of her organs). On the one hand, this suggests that despite all what Akash goes through; he is not willing to live a morally worthy life. His greed for success and desire for social mobility is as intense as ever. The urge to come clean doesn’t really concern him, it seems. On the other hand, poetic justice - for Simi’s involvement in her husband’s murder - is rendered first in the form of the absurdity of her fatal accident and then, in the form of devastated personal life for Manohar. Yet, a genuine investigation of a series of murders remains elusive. Despite the murder and the heinous disposal of the corpse, Manohar continues to roam free. Again, this is quite similar to our situation today. Criminals roam free as all the witnesses either disappear in thin air or they are themselves party to some other crimes. No one wants to clean the system as every person is rotten from the core and is unwilling to give up his personal greed. Once embroiled in a crime, it’s too difficult a choice to come clean and somehow, we are unwilling to shed our egos and accept moral responsibilities of our misdeeds. The onus therefore lies on every single person, at an individual level, to change things around him/her, even if it would mean to readily accept one’s wrongs and suffer for their redemption. It would have been interesting to see Akash framed as a murderer since he is present on both occasions of crime. Akash’s return journey towards a scrupulous life would have made a different story, the return path can always make way for a different film altogether!
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