Ankush'

1985 149’ col Hindi d/sc/co-dial N. Chandra pc Shilpa Movies st Debu Sen co-dial Sayyad Sultan lyr Abhilash c H. Lakshminarayan m Kuldeep Singh lp Madan Jain, Nana Patekar, Arjun Chakraborty, Suhas Palshikar, Nisha Singh, Ashalata, Dinkar Kaushik, Mahavir Shah, Rabia Amin, Ravi Patwardhan, Master Bobby, Raja Bundela, Sayyed

Chandra’s debut film propagates the cause of the Hindu Shiv Sena, a link emphasised by the first major Hindi film of Nana Patekar. A gang of four educated but unemployed men are a law unto themselves. Reformed by a female guardian angel (Singh), the four briefly attempt an entrepreneurial life until the woman is raped by the very gang leader (and his masters) against whom the youths are fighting. Revenge is swift, as is their repentance, creating a cyclical story of violence and regret. The film unashamedly rehearses Bombay’s Shiv Sena ideologies: unemployment is the devil’s workshop, industry is controlled by ‘rootless outsiders’ (North Indians, mainly) who persecute and exploit ‘the natives’. The relentless violence culminates in the four thugs, presented as ‘heroes’, being martyred as they are hanged in a manner reminiscent of India’s nationalist freedom fighters.

Film