A personal trip with The Rising. Review on Mangal Pandey - The Rising

For the past six months one of my occupations has been a book reading on the history of the English East India Company - The Honorable Company, authored by John Keay. Having read about The Company's history from the 1600s to 1760, I was at a juncture in the book where The Company had just begun switching over from business to Raj. In that sense the film on Mangal Pandey had a very interesting offering. From my dwelling in the pre-Raj era, it teased to take me on a long leap a hundred years ahead in time to the point where the Raj would get to witness the beginning of its end.

In spite, it has to be Aamir Khan about the film that drew me to the theater. I read up a bit on Mangal Pandey especially a review of a book by a Bengali author, which chose to dismiss Mangal Pandey as just a sepoy gone nuts and wrongly glorified, who did some irrational acts all by himself, and that it was never an uprising. That read up prepared me emotionally for the film. Not that I made an opinion, just the knowledge that the scenery appeared different to some other person.

The film is a very peaceful film and carries out its purpose of narration of story in a rhythmic style. There were points in the film where I would have popped some suggestions technically. But overall it is a film without too much dramatization, a degree even lesser than Lagaan, Aamir's recent film. I even feel that special attention was given to reduce the impact of some of the characters.

The film has plentiful small characters, and I am thrilled that each one has been given a fair chance to make a point in the film. The ones that were eye catching were the woman who sold her own milk; the pankhaawala; the achoot was the best small character in the film; Amisha Patel; Varsha Usgaonkar; Shahbaz Khan's ability to portray a Moughal was smartly exploited; the conspicuously inconspicuous coterie of sepoys around Aamir Khan; the choice of blue eyed semi-humane commander was awesome; the absolutely inhumane upper level pool-playing commander who was shot down from the horse; the English officer who was clearly a villain, but was probably purposefully back grounded in the final scenes; the bribing Parsi businessman. Kirron Kher and Rani Mukherjee were good but didn’t knit well into the film's plot - probably intended too. Tom Alter sadly was just another white-skinned European in the film.

Gordon had been given the complete responsibility to bring out the anguish caused to the many humane among the British ranks, which was unavoidable as they were puppeteered by The Company several miles away from home, as were the Indians, for a measly annual salary. He is awesome. Aamir Khan was as expected busy being truly Mangal Pandey. Naseeruddin Shah was doing his job.

There was one scene that distinctly touched me about the film. It has nothing to do with its plot. In the wake of Mumbai's flooding rains, I had been feeling that the ''Chaltaay'' attitude doesn’t work in times of calamities. I was being dragged down by the ease with which businesses resumed their chasing of targets. Participative local self-governance doesn’t seem to have a place in the city's lifestyle. Amidst this, Aamir's Khan's first call for attack after the appearance of European troops on the river banks, and the initially reluctant but later resounding support of the sepoys, heartened me with a pseudo-feeling of security.

Good film.