Slanting reality, cine style
RANA SIDDIQUI
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Meet real life hero Arun Kumar, the inspiration behind Kabeer Kaushik's recently released "Sehar".
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I AM ALINE Arun Kumar allows the director his artistic license.
So "Sehar" has ushered in a pleasant morning for debutant director Kabeer Kaushik. But for Arun Kumar, current DIG, Anti-Corruption Department in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on whose feats the film is based, dusk came in the film itself. It is because Kaushik shows him breathing his last while encountering Prakash Shukla, that infamous criminal, a student of Gorakhpur University who was the first in India to use the cell phone to commit crimes. Arun Kumar killed Shukla in September 1998 in an encounter with the help of the Special Task Force - STF - that he formed to nab him and demolish his web of organised crime across Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Agra and other parts of Uttar Pradesh.
Kumar, then 34 (the film says 31), formed the STF with 10 to 15 people and was the first in India to nab a criminal using electronic surveillance (of the gang's mobile phones). "We had located his house at Vasundhara in Ghaziabad by electronic surveillance. When we received information of him being there, we chased him and killed him there itself. In the encounter a Sub Inspector died," informs Kumar.
While Kaushik shows the climax in a running train and all the STF men perishing, Shukla (played by Sushant Singh) is ready to jump down from the train to save his life in the end after killing Kumar when Professor Tiwari (played by Pankaj Kapur) who helps the STF with electronic surveillance, takes to the gun and kills him despite the fact that he is scared even at the sight of a revolver. That way, it is not Kumar but Tiwari, a layman, who is the winner. And a message of pessimism that the entire police force has to die in the end if it is chasing a criminal like Shukla, is also reinforced.
Creative licence
THE REEL HERO Arshad Warsi plays the cop. PHOTO: SATISH H.
Explains Kaushik, "You must understand that the film is a fictionalised account of real life incidents. I had to complete the story after all. My common man takes to the gun because of the failure of the system and the inefficiency of the checks-and-balances in the police force. It is a strong statement on the police force and also a social message that a common man should help out the police force in cleaning a dirty system. Where do I get my creative licence if I don't show that? At the script level, Sushant (Shukla) and Arshad Warsi (Arun Kumar) are the same because both want to change the system in their own ways. My film is like showing `Company' to Dawood."
Counters Kumar, "The film is completely different, though it is made on me. It has nothing to do with reality. It is totally in the hands of the director as to how he wants to project his film. I have come to know that he was under a lot of pressure to change the end and certain other scenes in the film. But by doing that he has really taken a very bold step. He shows a common man taking up arms in favour of police force. And legally it is not wrong to take to the gun for private defence. That's why we issue licences to the common man. We had discussions on the film before Kabeer started shooting. I knew that I was supposed to die in the film. Many people didn't like me dying though!"
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