Hindi Cinema has never been keen on making enlightening biographies, especially of any talented creative artists born in our part of the world in the last century. In the beginning we made movies on all mythological characters and then the focus shifted on to the life of key historical figures, freedom fighters, rebels and occasionally a sportsman or a business tycoon too as seen in the recent times. But very rarely we have made a film (not documentaries) on any creative artist of our country who had an exceptionally god gifted talent in any particular artistic stream and celebrated his entire life with the blessed art right till the last days.
Thankfully, RANG RASIYA is one of those rare and important biographical dramas based on the life of 19th century painter RAJA RAVI VARMA, who was the pioneer artist, painting the divine Indian GODS and GODESSES on his canvas with an exceptional grace and beauty. Directed by Ketan Mehta the period drama stars Randeep Hooda and Nandana Senin the lead but unfortunately remained in the cans for six long years since its completion in 2008.
Now where a few blame the internal disputes of the makers as the cause of this long delay in its release, others mention its extremely bold scenes as the key reason for getting stuck in the censors, in order to avoid any communal unrest among the people. Anyway, whatever the reason might be, the sad irony remains that despite being a rare, courageous film made on one of the most famous Indian painters (who earned a world acclaim too), the project could found no takers till recently, when Randeep Hooda became a part of some highly successful films at the box office making a name of his own. Hence where the censors & controversies can be termed as the front side of the coin, the completely business minded & cruel exhibition norms of the industry form its other hidden side, never giving the much needed support to such artistic films since last many decades of our film-history to say the bitter truth.
Moving ahead, the film has now reached the theatres and is available for all the lovers of such meaningful or enlightening cinema waiting desperately. But if in case it fails to find a decent number of viewers in the theatres post this prolonged wait, then it will declare we the audience too as a part of this questionable partial system ruining such great attempts made, on a constant basis.
Recalling my experience of watching RANG RASIYA, I luckily saw it in a Film festival last year and was simply enthralled by the life experiences of the celebrated painter RAJA RAVI VARMA and the hardships he had to face leading him to the court of law on the charges of spreading vulgarity. Based on the biographical novel by Ranjit Desai the film passionately talks about Varma's obsessive art and the struggle to practice his free artistic expressions depicting the mythological characters creatively. And many would be stunned to know that though his exquisite paintings were getting famous all over the world in that particular era, the artist was arrested in his own country on the charge of obscenity and offending religious & cultural sentiments of the public by painting in an indecent manner.
Frankly, RANG RASIYA was an eye opener for me too as I was also not aware of such astonishing facts about one of the greatest Indian painters of my own country. And that is exactly why bio-pics need to be made like an effective means of spreading awareness in the present generation to be precise. Yes, technically it can easily be called an artistically inclined film made with a sincere motive accompanied by a decent cinematography, average soundtrack (which could be much better) and impressive performances by the entire cast led by Randeep Hooda and the gorgeous Nandana Sen.
However it's not the technical qualities for which the film is being included here in the list of must watch movies, but it's the informative value of its shocking as well as educative content which essentially needs to be told to our younger generation and not to be slipped under the carpet as some forgettable part of our history. So ignoring all the controversies and unnecessary delay over its release, I would like to recommend watching RANG RASIYA as a must, since its a film which would straight away remind you of a sharp contradictory truth of the recent times related with another legendary artist M. F. Hussain.
Putting it more clearly, what we did with M. F. Hussain is nothing new as the same had been done with Raja Ravi Varma too way back in the 19th century. So its only the calendar changing its dates, whereas our thinking patterns still remain the same insulting the creative minds of the nation, giving them awards posthumously and refusing their respected dues in their lifetimes following a shameful pattern.
With a hope that the future India would learn this important lesson of giving that 'artistic freedom' to its creators through this brave, thoughtful and honest depiction by Ketan Mehta, do watch this at the earliest and know more about your history with a different perspective.
