This is miniseries of great Indian gangster movies. This miniseries contains five finest realistically treated gangster movies made in India - Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan (1986), Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Parinda (1989), Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya (1998), Mahesh Manjerakar’s Vaastav (1999), Ram Gopal Varma’s Company (2002).
"Karega Jo Bhi Yahan, Bharega Woh Bhi Yahan." - person’s actions will determine the person’s destiny, which is theory of Karma in current life. In Hinduism, Karma means one’s state in this life is a result of actions in past incarnations and action in this life will determine one’s destiny in future incarnations.
Legendary Tamil filmmaker Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan (1987) (also known as Nayagan in Tamil or Velu Nayakan in Hindi) tackles Karma’s theory in current life at the backdrop of Bombay underworld. Nayakan means "Nayak" in Hindi and "The Leader" in English.
Story
An orphan boy Shakti Velu assaults the police officer that killed his father and run away to Mumbai at very young age. Velu befriend to another young orphan Selva and both of them stays with kind-hearted Muslim fisherman named Karim Lala in slums. Karim Lala smuggles illegal items to earn money to help poor people in the slums. Both Velu (Kamal Hassan) and Selva (Janagaraj) grows up watching police’s brutality and atrocities on poor people in the slums and started harboring hatred for them.
One day Velu takes over smuggling when Karim Lala was sick. His charging of Rs.2000 instead of usual Rs. 200 makes smuggler to tip-off police about Karim Lala’s work. Police arrests Karim Lala, beats him to death during interrogation, and Velu finds Karim Lala’s body hanged in the police custody. Angry Velu searches for corrupt police officer and kill him in broad daylight in the slums. He sympathies police officer’s family and accept responsibility to educate his son. He starts making lots of money with illegal activities and becomes savior for the people who lives in slum.
Later, Velu marries to young prostitute named Neela (Saranya) and have two kids - Suraj and Sarita. He slowly and slowly rises as a leader, becomes more powerful and influential, and runs his organized crime business from the slum. His work starts challenging other gangsters in Mumbai. One night during enemy attack on his house, his wife gets killed. That force Velu to send his children away where they grow up without affected by gangster’s life. Furious Velu kills one by one all gangsters in the Mumbai and becomes sole possessor of underworld.
As years pass, Velu becomes one of the biggest gangsters in Mumbai underworld. Velu runs his business and parallel judiciary system from his house to settle disputes. Once his kids grow up, they come back to Mumbai. Suraj grew up mimicking his dad, wanted to be part of his dad’s crime activities but gets killed because of inexperience. Sarita gets devastated knowing his dad as mafia. She wants to stay away from her dad’s crime. She marries to assistant commissioner of police who is honest officer and wants to clean up the system.
Sarita’s husband arrests one by one all Velu’s deputies but somehow fails to capture Velu because of people whom Velu helped all these years are able to save or hide him successfully. Many people becomes obstacle in police activities to arrest Velu. Later Velu finds out that his daughter was married to same person who is after him. He surrenders himself to the police but later released by court because of unavailability of any witnesses. His follower’s joy short-lives and finds him get assassinated soon after he is released by court.
Analysis
Nayakan is truly epic realistic drama depicting gangster’s life from childhood to adulthood to parenthood in slums of Mumbai underworld. Its larger than life subject is comparable to Hollywood’s classic Godfather. Both movie follows orphan boy to city that later become king of organized underworld crime with the robin-hood image. Nayakan also closely resembles to Vaastav as both depicts gangster’s rise and fall in Mumbai underworld. If Vaastav tackles sudden rise and fall of mafia then Nayakan tackles gradual up and down of mafia’s life.
Nayakan was inspired by true story of the life of a real South Indian underworld don called Varada Bhai (Varadarajan Mudaliar). Varada started as a porter at the VT Railway station in 1960s. His gang rises in underworld in the 1970s on the basis of bootlegging operations. He later expanded his illegal activities into smuggling, dock thefts, contract killing, acquired considerable wealth, destroyed the law enforcement system, and ruled the city’s underground for over a decade. In the mid 1980s, he became so influential that he used to hold parallel judiciary courts in his area of influence to settle disputes.
The success of Godfather and Scarface in Hollywood influenced many filmmakers all over the world, Mani Ratnam was one of them. Mani Ratnam’s depth touch of epic subject, P.C. Sriram’s cinematography of Bombay locals especially waterfront, gateway of India, and Thota Tharani’s art direction as recreation of Dharavi slum in Madras was fine example of excellent production values.
As far as screenplay, many scenes are standouts. Just watch Velu’s mute resistance of police’s water attack, Velu’s innovating smuggling techniques, how Velu chases down police inspector in tiny streets of slum and later kill him with hammer, how Velu and slum’s people destroy builder’s house to save their slum, Velu’s children mimicking Velu and his court for justice, rival gangster’s attack on Velu’s house and his wife’s murder, Velu and his daughter’s confrontation over what’s good and bad, Velu’s cry at his son’s body, how police commissnor respects Velu by sitting on floor when he comes to Velu’s court for justice, scene when Velu finds out his daughter is married to police, and Velu faces questionnaire from his grandson.
Kamal Hassan as Velu Nayakan lives the Velu’s role. His remarkably complex performance as Velu is benchmark of acting. Velu is angry young man at young age, influential and powerful mafia at middle age, and extremely vulnerable don at old age. He is sensitive yet ruthless human who couldn’t tolerate system’s brutality, later embrace life of crime to help his community in slums, doesn’t want his children to get involved in underworld, holds courts to offer parallel judiciary system, and later having trouble juggling his personal life with mafia life.
In Velu Nayakan (Hindi dubbed version), Illayaraja’s music was disappointment except one song - Alka Yagnik and Kumar Sanu’s "Chaha Hamne Tujhe", which comes right after Kamal get married. All other songs are unnecessary and it’s nothing but hindrance in the tightly paced proceeding. He did make up inferior soundtracks with exceptional background score using instantly recognizable theme throughout the movie.
Conclusion
Nayakan is arguably Mani Ratnam’s greatest movie. Even though Nayakan already won lots of acclaims at Indian domestic film circuit as India’s official entry for academy awards in 1987 and Kamal Hassan winning best national actor award for his epic portrayal, perhaps its finest achievement was last year when Time Magazine included Nayakan in their All-time 100 best movies in 2005 along with other Indian counterparts like Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy and Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa. Nayakan is arguably one of the greatest gangster movies made on face of earth. It’s a timeless classic.