Eklavya

I had to review this film, even though it came out over a year ago. It is easily the most eccentric Indian film I have ever seen. It's Indian Gothic at it's best: Dark, moody, atomspheric, full of dread, torment, insanity, murder and dark secrets.

The film begins with the sick Queen, attended by the King and her daughter. The king reads to her from Romeo and Juilet. The Queen feverish, starts calling for Eklavya, the palace servant. The king tells her to stop. She doesn't. So the King kills her suffocating her with a pillow. The daughter, smiles at the camera and says "Mummy has died".

I can't imagine how Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the director of the film expected that this film would work in India. Gothic is alien to Indian sensibilities. Its out of fashion even in the western world. But I just loved it.

Whats even more amazing is that VVC manages to blend gothic with the Indian Epic Mahabharat, a combination that is as demented as the rest of the film.


The film is about, Eklavya named for, and like a character in the Indian Epic Mahabharat. Eklavya in the Indian epic is a low caste nobody who aspires to be a great warrior. In the absence of a guru to teach him, he becomes a great archer "taught" by a mud statue of the guru Dronarcharya. One day, he gets to meet the real Dronarcharya, who is astounded by Eklavya's skill and then outraged, as he realises that the low caste Eklavya was a better archer than his upper caste star pupil-Arjun. Dronacharya demands Eklavyas thumb in return for "teaching" him to be an archer and Eklavya complies and of course without his thumb is an archer no more. In Eklavya's place I would have buried an arrow in Dronarcharya's eye.

The Elklavya of the film is in a similar position. The servant in a minor royal family of Rajasthan, he has the zeal of his namesake in the Mahabharat, holding on to secrets that threaten his very life. He is also as well an accomplished marksman displayed in a bravura sequence where he shoots the bells off a pigeons feet blind folded.

The secret that he carries in his bosom is very Mahabharat in flavour. He is the father to the heir of the Kingdom. The King is sterile and Eklavya is forced to impregnate the queen. The Kings sterility and cuckold status eat at his mind over the years turning him into a pathetic and eventually homicidal monster. Boman Irani, who plays the king is funny and terrifying at the same time. After finishing off his wife, he decides to go after his heir and of course Eklavya. The latter has to overcome his loyalty to the king and goes on splendid killing spree to save his son.


A must see. No songs. stunning looking