Khalnayak

1993 190’ col/scope Hindi d/p/s Subhash Ghai pc Mukta Arts sc Ram Kelkar dial Kamlesh Pandey lyr Anand Bakshi c Ashok Mehta m Laxmikant- Pyarelal lp Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Madhuri Dixit, Raakhee, Anupam Kher, Ramya Krishna, Pramod Moutho, A.K. Hangal, Neena Gupta

Ghai’s controversial hit presents the ‘villain’ Sanjay Dutt as exemplifying ‘today’s youth’. Dutt plays Ballu, a gangster and political criminal responsible for several assassinations, who is employed by the film’s main villain, Roshi Mahanta (Moutho). When Ballu escapes from prison without divulging the name of his employer, the police inspector Ramkumar (Shroff) sends his colleague and girlfriend Ganga (Dixit) to infiltrate the gang masquerading as a dancing girl. The film capitalised on the off-screen history of Dutt who, shortly after its completion, was arrested and imprisoned for alleged involvement in the Bombay communal riots of 1993, an incident popularly seen as a ‘real life’ re-enactment of what remains his definitive screen role. It was also controversial for the accusations of vulgarity levelled against its megahit song Choli ke peeche, ‘What’s beneath the blouse’, which, as a BBC report on the film put it, ‘had all of India hot under the collar’. Ghai has argued that the song merely adapts a traditional Rajasthani folk lyric.

Film