The many lives of Dawood

Ram Gopal Varma

As Ram Gopal Varma prepares for the release of his latest underground thriller D, Business Standard gets him to look down and dirty at the genre of which he is master.

Ram Gopal Varma's constant companion in his SUV as it moves through the innards of the city is a firearm-wielding bodyguard. Varma began his take on the underbelly of crime in the city with his very first film,

Shiva, looked upon by many as way too violent for its times. The film extrapolated on the scene of extortion and crime, both starting at the college campus where his hero (Shiva) and anti-hero (Bhavani) were both products of college politics.

Today, as he readies the release of his umpteenth take on the Mumbai underworld, echoes of Shiva and Bhavani can be seen in his newest embodiment of crime corporation, simply called D.

Randeep Hooda's character Deshu in D establishes the journey of a single man who wields his mind and muscle and eventually monopolises the underbelly of the city.

The D symbolism is a way-too-obvious hint at Mumbai's original crime master. In fact, the film itself is being looked at as something of a prequel to arguably Varma's best movie, Company, which explored the relationship between Dawood (referred to in the film as Mallik) and Chota Shakeel (Chandu in the film, played by Vivek Oberoi).

While the name of Mallik has been changed to Deshu in D, the spirit remains intact. Randeep Hooda, with a fabulous screen presence, has even imbibed Ajay Devgan's deadpan drawl to bear striking resemblance to the earlier flick.

The underworld is a genre Varma handles better than most, although equally good takes on the mechanics of the underworld have been attempted by Vidhu Vinod Chopra (Parinda), Vishal Bharadwaj (Maqbool) and Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday).

While he has deglamourised the villain from the cigar-chewing, verbose Ajits and Prans of the yesteryears, it's clear that he follows the philosophy that all underworld chiefs aspire for a better life.

Which is why his character DK from even a forgettable flick like Drohi stands out because he donates to police funds and bears a respectable front in public life.

Deshu in D will be shown carving a career for himself. Unlike Company, which explained the dynamics of the crime world, D will be showing how a character consciously takes a career decision in crime and works towards it.

As a young movie watcher, Varma found the beginning portions of Yash Chopra's Deewar very good and is hugely influenced by Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy. It's no wonder then that his next take is not so much on the underworld as on extra-constitutional power "" Sarkar will see the Bachchans Sr and Jr pair up for the first time ever.

However, as of now, he has great hopes for D. Directed by a protege, Vishram Sawant, the film is yet another vehicle for Ramu's many assistants.

Last year, Shimit Amin introduced us to the encounter cop's perspective in the crime saga Ab Tak Chappan, and Srinivas Raghavan gave us a tale of a wronged woman's scheming retribution against the charming bounty hunter who wronged her in Ek Hasina Thi.

Varma also has a penchant for casting people in the unlikeliest of moulds, and reshapes careers completely "" from Manoj Vajpayee's legendary take as Bhikhu Matre in Satya to chocolate boy Saif's turn as a killer in Ek Hasina Thi to forgotten bumpkin Chunky Pandey cast in D as the protagonist's extrovert sidekick.

What next? Where does the underworld go from here? Varma has no answers as of now, as he doesn't believe in planning anything "" or is he waiting for a more opportune moment to delve into some unexplored aspect of a world that is Mumbai's step-sibling?

Dialogue

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How would you define the underworld?

Underworld is a term, an alternative to the street goon, who is essentially a by-product of the system. I'm half a journalist myself who puts a perspective on an issue that's packaged in drama and gloss for celluloid.

You have shown the working of the crime world as a well-oiled business machinery bereft of moral equations.

In my mind there is no difference between the underworld and the corporate world "" only in the corporate world one loses money, and in the underworld one loses lives.

Recently, I was listening to a taped conversation between a shooter and his client, and realised how organised these guys are. They plan the minutest details before any assignment. After all, lives are really at stake here.

What are your expectations from D?

I think this is the best take on the underworld. And Randeep Hooda's screen presence will only add to the film-making style. Very rarely do you come across a guy with such a strong presence.

But he is most definitely being positioned as the guy who goes on to become Mallik in Company ?

Yes. The vocal tone of Deshu is similar to Devgan's Mallik. It was a conscious decision to give the film a prequel touch, although it's a completely original and unique film in itself.

Other dastardly acts

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Ram Gopal Varma apart, there have been several commendable films on crime corporates in filmdom, some of which have surpassed even Varma's vision.

Maqbool
Vishal Bharadwaj had earlier worked on Varma's Satya as a songster. But when he re-interpreted Macbeth in the patriarchal crime world of Jehangir Khan, it was sheer poetry in blood.

Black Friday
Anurag Kashyap wrote the script for Varma's Satya and having explored Kafkaesque nihilistic mindspaces of the vitriolic youth, analysed the Mumbai bomb blasts with hard reality, exposing the nexus between the city's ganglords and the NRI warmongers.

Parinda
Standard story of conflict between virtue and vice, in the backdrop of the Mumbai crime scene, brought Vidhu Vinod Chopra and his eclectic visual style to the limelight.

Vaastav
More character focussed than its predecessors, Mahesh Manjrekar's big hit set in Mumbai's middle-class chawls rode largely on Sanjay Dutt's Filmfare-winning performance and next-door-to-Alice screenplay.