Kalyug Movie

I watched "Kalyug", produced by Shashi Kapoor and directed by Shyam Benegal, today. It is modernization of epic Mahabharat. The whole story is set in contemporary setup with warring business families. It shows that humans are still repeating the same mistakes results of which are told in epic.Thousands of years have passed but humans could not grow above those mistakes and still tread the path of destruction. We all are filled with jealousy and maddening ambition which takes control of us and leads us to wrong path.

The basic premise of the movie is two warring business families (who are related by blood). The relations take nasty turn after some tender-failure which makes it male-movie but the writers of the movie made sure that woman characters are also given importance and it comes across verr well. Though woman are not in the line of the main story but can not be ignored.They are not eye candy but all their gestures say a lot about the situation.

I was intrigued by Rekha's character,named Supriya, her will to control decisions of people around her ,and her fighting spirit. She is as mystic as Draupadi's character of Mahabharat. I found Supriya Pathak's character interesting,she is called Subhadra. She is shown to be very naive to handle her husband in times of his failure. There are enough hints in the movie which shows that Supriya likes her brother-in-law,Anant Nag(named Bharat), but all the hints are very subtle. Rekha asks him to remove his moustaches in middle of some discussion and he simply laughs over that idea. But he is shown without moustaches in remaining part of the movie. Rekha does not have much relation with her husband who is very calm and quiet. Towards the end, she turns to Bharat for all the help instead of her husband. Also,when Bharat is totally devasted by the turn of the events and his wife ,Subhadra,is unable to console him, Supriya enters the room and decides to take care of him.

Supriya,played by Rekha and Dharam,played by Raj Babbar, looks perfect couple to outside world ,both look too mature and composed. But they have little in common. Rekha is totally into worldly affairs and always wants to be in winning side. Her husband looks at life more spiritually and philosophically. What a irony !!


All in all,well made movie. It proves "being inspired" can be good.