Anurag Kashyap’s film, based on the book of the same name by S. Hussain Zaidi, has finally made it to release.   Its appearance in cinemas was halted by the Bombay High Court (even though it had a censor certificate) because of a petition that those accused of the bomb blasts filed, saying that the film would affect their chance of getting a fair trial.   After judgement was delivered September 2006, the wheels went into motion to get the film in cinemas.

The film opens with the moments leading up to the series of bomb blasts that took place all over Bombay on March 12, 1993, with shots of average people in front of the Bombay Stock Exchange (the most renowned of the targets), with food vendors chatting, anticipating the weekend ahead.   A droning sound that gets louder before being joined by a heartbeat signal to us that the moment is at hand, and then the impact occurs.   Glass and debris blow outward, blackened and bloodied limbs and bodies lay all around and people start to emerge, ghostlike, covered in dust, from the building, looking very much like the stunned souls we in NY saw making their way uptown on foot from the site of the World Trade Center attacks.   In a telling attention to detail by the director,  a man sees a gold chain that has been blown off someone, and he scoops it up, looking left and right before slipping it into his pocket.

The scene shifts to the Worli passport office, another site of another bomb that exploded minutes later, and interspersed with news footage from the day, the various other locations are shown (Air India office, hotels, markets).  

Then we meet the man who will be with us for the rest of the film, Inspector Rakesh Maria (Kay Kay Menon), who heads up the investigation.   Early on they are called to the location of an abandoned scooter that turns out to be packed with RDX, but which never detonated.   They trace the registration for the scooter to the wife of Tiger Memon, and arrive at the Memon household to find that they have all left for Dubai several days earlier, a neighbor reveals.

Cut to Dubai, soon  after the last bomb has gone off, we see the man Tiger Memon (Pawan Malhotra) digging in with  gusto to a plate of chicken after admitting proudly to the  man with him that the acts of March 12th are his.   But his pleasure at the admission is short-lived, as his dining companion informs him  “You won’t get away with it, they found one scooter.”   Memon rushes off to make phone calls and the action returns to Bombay.

From there on, we go chronologically from the first arrest, to the next, and the interrogations, and we meet Badshah Khan (played by Aditya Srivastava),  one of the bombers who is intructed  by Memon to leave town and hide.   Just one small and insignificant cog in a crowded machinery, we soon realize, as does he, that he’s being led on a pointless chase as his money runs out and Tiger’s men stop taking his calls.   The cops find him in his home town of Rampur and Inspector Maria soon convinces him that “Allah is with the innocent.   This is why we have been able to make 200 arrests in 2 months.”   Badshah Khan realizes he’s been manipulated by Memon and agrees to give evidence.

As Khan narrates his story, the movie goes back in time to show how the origin of the anger that inspired the men to get involved in the scheme comes from the demolition of the Babri mosque and the subsequent Bombay riots.   Memon lost his office, others lost family members.   He uses that anger to feed the flame that he stirs in the men he gathers.   In Dubai he meets with members of Pakistani intelligence and military  who agree to provide weapons and explosives.   Memon sends his team  to Pakistan where they are trained.    And then the day arrives.   We’ve come full circle, back to where the film started, except now we see the last minutes before the explosions, as they were lived by the bombers.   The end.

Before the credits appear, we’re told onscreen that of the 122 arrested, 100 were found guilty, but  also that 29 other people wanted in connection with the attacks had fled and were still at large (Tiger Memon too).   Then the famous Gandhi quote of “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”, and the credits roll.

The three lead actors all excel, deftly, in their roles.   Kay Kay is especially striking as the no-frills man who is genuinely pained by the measures he and the other cops go through to get suspects to talk.   There is one interrogation scene that is excruciating, but well done, because, after one cop says “Bring me the hammer” we don’t actually see him beat the man’s right hand repeatedly, but we hear the screams and we see the after effects as they force the suspect to sign his statement, with the coup de grace as the cop flicks off a bit of flesh (and fingernail?) stuck by blood to the document.

Pawan Malhotra as Tiger is alternatively smooth and seething  as he manipulates the various people who serve him and play parts of his plan.   As Badshah Khan, Aditya Srivastava is actually able to make his character sympathetic as a man who has been used and discarded and left holding the bag.

See it or skip it?

See it.   This is a powerful, tightly made film.   It doesn’t indulge in any flashy grandstanding, but it doesn’t need to, because it narrates the story so succinctly, leaving aside any excess.

What I want to know now is, will Kashyap’s Paanch (also starring Kay Kay), which has also been withering on the vine after completion, be released some time soon?