Main Atal Hoon Star Cast/ Actors: Pankaj Tripathi As Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Paula McGlynn As Soniya Gandhi, Harshad Kumar As Pramod Mahajan, Gaurri Sukhtankar As Sushma Swaraj, Benedict Garrett, Piyush Mishra And Harshal Gire.
Main Atal Hoon Release Date: January 19, 2024
Main Atal Hoon Available On: Theatrical Release and (likely to be released on Zee5 digital Platform)
Main Atal Hoon Released/ Available In Languages: Hindi
Main Atal Hoon Runtime: 2h 19m
Main Atal HoonCritic Review:
Atal Bihari Vajpayee – one of India’s most inspirational right-wing leaders.
Pankaj Tripathi – one of Hindi cinema’s finest actors.
Ravi Jadhav – an award-winning writer-director.
It is a potent trio.
When Ravi Jadhav, known for cinematically acclaimed work like Natarang, Balak Palak, Timepass and Nude, teams with Pankaj Tripathi whose fluency in Hindi is an unmatched asset for playing Vajpayee, the biopic had to be as inspirational and as incredible as the three-time Prime Minister himself.
Jadhav does start off well especially when Atla, as he was fondly called by his family, grows up in a happy home in Gwalior. His equation with his father Krishna Bihari Vajpayee (played splendidly by Piyush Mishra) sparkles, more so when they both end up studying law in the same class. Atla is aghast, Krishna is amused. The father-son banter is a delight and that’s where he learns to say, ‘Nirnay pakka nahi, nirnay atal hai’.
Those who know their right-wing politics will be comforted with Atal’s open awe of RSS leaders Hedgewar and Golwalkar, his utter fascination for the ‘nation first’ patriotism of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the birth of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the RSS-blessed baby entity in politics.
The humiliation Atal feels when the British point to their flag on Indian soil, his ardent desire to see our tiranga flying proudly and his speech against caste discrimination arouse strong sentiments as early signs of the leader he would grow into.
Alongside is Atal’s brilliance as a student and his growing chemistry with pretty classmate Rajkumari Haksar Kaul (Ekta Kaul). A background song is soft and suitably romantic.
But here’s where the first stumble is observed. However brilliant a performer he may be, Pankaj Tripathi is an ill-fit as a collegian. And however endearing his portrayal of Atal bashfully romancing Rajkumari, this decade required a chronologically younger actor.
Once the RSS beckons Atal, those light, warm moments with dad and Rajkumari vanish. With his atal vow to stay a bachelor and avoid ghar-grihasti, it begins to feel like incidents in a political career strung together without an emotional chord.
One understands that the RSS, Jana Sangh and the rise of the BJP run parallel to Vajpayee’s own growth in stature and statesmanship. But between Ravi Jadhav and co-writer Rishi Virmani, they make Atal’s life more anecdotal than an engaging, free-flowing narrative. Powerful incidents like the massacre of Brahmins in the aftermath of Gandhi’s assassination are so underbaked that those who knew nothing about it will be none the wiser.
Without a doubt, Vajpayee’s poetry (Geet naya gaata hu, as a sample) and his eloquent speeches are delivered by Tripathi with the same oratorial skills as the man himself. There’s also a quick swipe at Nehru’s ‘Tryst with destiny’ speech at the stroke of the midnight hour on Independence Day when guys in the Hindi heartland are left untouched by it – Nehruji spoke in English, we’ve no clue what he said.
From there on, it is like pages of history highlighting events. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee who resigned from Nehru’s cabinet, raised his voice against Article 370 (so relevant in today’s discussion) and formed the Bharatiya Jana Sangh with the blessings of the RSS, had a suspicious death in jail. The war with China. Nehru’s death. The Tashkent Agreement. PM Shastri’s death. Deendayal Upadhyay, owner of the newspaper Rashtra Dharma and a leader of the Jana Sangh, also found dead.
Until Atal steps in as leader, a role that carried with it the fear of early death – Atal died at 93.
All this and more flash by as political incidents, the life of Atal Bihari the man still left largely unexplored.
Jadhav does dare venture into Vajpayee’s controversial and unconventional living arrangement with former flame Rajkumari, a married woman with a daughter. In real life, Vajpayee was open about calling the child his adopted daughter but Jadhav puts across the arrangement with Rajkumari rather sketchily, leaving it a strange compromise. Especially when there is a husband on the scene and Vajpayee spouts strange lines like, “Main avivahit hoon lekin kunwara nahi (I’m unmarried but not a bachelor)”.
The Emergency, Jayprakash Narayan’s revolution, the victory of the Janata Party, the Indira Gandhi-Charan Singh deal shot like a vamp and villain scene and the rise of the lotus (the BJP) followed by the assassination of Indira Gandhi and a bhavuk (emotional) India voting her son to power, are all dutifully chronicled. But like a documentary on India’s political scene.
There are references to Vajpayee riding a bullock cart to Parliament to protest the rise in diesel and petrol prices, to kar sevaks and the Ram Mandir (with Kailash Kher’s Ram dhun in the background).But a lot is left unexplained. As said earlier, it’s staccato. And much of the impact is lost because Vajpayee’s dialogues are delivered like he’s on stage or in electioneering mode. Even his discussion on Hindi cinema with great friend LK Advani (Raja Rameshwar Sevak bearing an uncanny resemblance to him) is delivered like a monologue which ultimately doesn’t pack a wallop. Short sentences do.
Vajpayee became the Prime Minister for the first time in 1998. Kargil on his watch is mentioned unemotionally like another incident. It’s also unclear how he lost the no-confidence motion or how he became PM three times.
It’s the narration and the telling of this incredible man’s story that’s patchy, not emotionally catchy. It is saved to a large extent by Pankaj Tripathi’s portrayal if only it weren’t so stagey. Getting the body language perfect and sporting cheeks just like Vajpayee, Pankaj transforms himself but the effort behind it is visible. Some of the casting like Gauri Sukhtankar as a young Sushma Swaraj and Yogendra Patwal as youthful Arun Jaitley is amusingly good.
Main Atal Hoon– Watch Or Not?: Watch it to salute one of our tallest statesmen.
Main Atal Hoon Review Score Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Main Atal Hoon Trailer:
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