There is nothing really wrong with this sanitized bio-pic. It tells the story it has to without any sense of adventure or recklessness. It has no lip-sync songs and no romantic interludes. It is….inoffensive. After all . we have watched innumerable hagiographic screen interpretations of political figures from Sardar Patel to Manmohan Singh.What’s the harm in one more?
Once we accept the airy-fairy nature of the project (wonder why the censor board objected!) Ajey is not offensive, unless over-theatrical filmmaking offends you, an offence of which a majority of our filmmakers are guilty.
Ajey is as reverent and faithful to anointing Yogi Adityanath as, say, the Manmohan Singh biopic in which Anupam Kher played the turbaned academic, or the Narendra Modi biopic with Vivek Oberoi. It has its actorial advantage in Anant Joshi, a bright young performer whom you might have seen stealing scenes from the sideline in a film such as Kathal(where he was a hoot as provincial constable).
As Adityanath, Anant Joshi takes us manfully through the intriguing journey of a man who relinquishes his family obligations to become a yogi and finally arrives at a political career on realizing the reformative zeal is of no consequence without power.
Paresh Rawal, I kid you not, is unrecognizable as Ajey-Adityanath’s mentor and guru Mahant Avaidyanath. The actor’s face is completely concealed in facial hair and his motives for weaning away Ajey/Adityanath from a normal life appear nebulous.
I was amused by the sequence where Ajey’s mother (played by Garima Vikrant Singh) blasts Rawal for snatching her son away. The ever-dependable Pawan Malhotra has little to do as the hero’s beleaguered father.
The fact-check is observed with due care. Shantanu Gupta’s The Monk Who Became Chief Minister is the blueprint which the film follows without swerving into any kind of innovation: God forbid! Some episodes such as the one where Adityanath in his youth, then Ajey, supports a female candidate in college elections, are impressive more for what they say about the biographical figure than what the film succeeds in saying about him.
I don’t know whether the real Adityanath has seen Ajey. If he hasn’t, I can only assure him that the film does nothing to compromise his reputation.It may not win him new fans, but it won’t lose him any of the reputation that he has.
Speaking about biopics on politicians in Indian cinema: it is time we stopped making them. They can never tell the whole truth without the risk of being accused of defamation.
