Created by Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket, Raakh draws inspiration from the real-life case of Ranga-Billa and tells a story so disturbing, so stomach-churning, that it instills a fear of evil so deep it seems to settle into your bones. Mainstream movies have, for a long time now, made villains look cool, smart, stylish. With their brain-dead stories, they have desensitized audiences to violence and crime to such an extent that you find people around you cheering for gangsters and imitating them on Instagram reels. So what if Rehman Dakait and Major Iqbal, in Dhurandhar, are responsible for the Mumbai terror attacks? They look so classy, and Rehman looks so good dancing to the beats of FA9LA that he has been turned into a viral sensation by the public. During my screening of Dhurandhar: The Revenge, the audience applauded when the title "Angel of Death" appeared for Iqbal on the screen. People can get so high on slick surfaces that they forget they are cheering for the bad guy. That's the rotten core that exists in most of these mainstream movies.
Hence, movies like Assi and shows like Raakh are absolutely necessary. They serve as reminders that there is nothing "cool" about criminals and a life of crime. At the same time, these productions don't merely rely on their message for popular appeal; they come loaded with an artistry that heightens the moral core of the story. In Raakh, Nandakumar, Saket, and director Prosit Roy win 80-90% of their battle by covering Rajjo (Ramandeep Yadav) and Babu (Akash Makhija) with a stench so foul that their very presence makes you feel dirty. I responded to them with a mixture of disgust and fright. I was terrified of them, yet I also wanted to hit them with a thick stick. The credit for most of these feelings should go to Makhija's hair-raising performance. If anyone is making a "villain of the year" list, don't forget to put him at the top because he deserves it. Makhija scared the daylights out of me. There were so many moments when I almost decided to stop watching the series because Makhija, as Babu, reactivated my childhood fear of strangers I picked up from news reports, crime shows, and adults warning us kids about the dangers lurking outside. Anyone planning to watch Haunted 3D: Echoes of the Past in theaters should watch Raakh instead, as Babu will terrify you far more viscerally than the cartoon CGI spirits. And unlike Vikram Bhatt's horror thriller, Raakh doesn't need the gimmick of 3D.
The series presents Rajjo and Babu as both toxic lovers and evil twins. Their "love story," which also ends up featuring the Taj Mahal, is written with poisonous ink. It is Babu who mostly drives Rajjo toward greater forms of sin by attacking his masculinity. Ramandeep Yadav plays Rajjo like a wimp who seems incapable of killing even a mosquito. But threaten his "manliness," and he turns bloodthirsty. There is a lingering sense that had Babu never entered his life, Rajjo would have lived an honest—even if sad—life as a rat catcher. Raakh, in a way, is Rajjo's dark coming-of-age story. From a man who pleads with Babu not to kill a child, who explains a friend's job as a club singer with a sympathetic "life can be cruel" remark, Rajjo becomes someone who takes pleasure in hitting, kidnapping, and asserting dominance over his victims. Rajjo and Babu are terribly unpleasant from the beginning. When SI Jayprakash Jatav (Ali Fazal) eventually nabs them and beats them on the train, you experience a satisfying release. You want to join Jayprakash on the screen. It feels as if you have been released from a tight, negative grip.
Jayprakash is the cop character who wants to prove himself by catching the culprits. Yet he isn't written generically. He is a Dalit who wants to be known for his competence and doesn't like his father, Ghanshyam (Rakesh Bedi), dropping by the police station with tiffin. Jayprakash is embarrassed because he sees his father's behavior as bordering on flattery. From Ghanshyam's perspective, however, he isn't doing anything wrong because this is how he used to work when he was in the police. Raakh offers a fairly balanced view of its characters and events—you are invited to understand both sides. A journalist, Nisar (Anshul Chauhan), might seem like an untrustworthy scoopster to a cop, but see her situation through her eyes, and you meet a person who, like Jayprakash, wants to succeed through her expertise and is working under her own deadlines. Dibyendu Bhattacharya's character asks Jayprakash to hand over the case to a senior officer, but he isn't a cliché obstacle-generating superior. He admires Jayprakash, yet because this is a high-profile case, he wants it solved quickly to ease the political and media pressure. Even Rajjo's behavior can be traced back to the disgusting surroundings of his village. One can imagine him growing up among boys with sexist views, boys who might simultaneously ogle his sister while filling his head with nonsense. What about Babu? Would he have become a somewhat better person if he had received love from his mother? But Babu was a monster from a very young age. His own mother refers to him as one; he does so many awful things that she begins keeping him at a distance.
We know Rajjo and Babu will eventually cross paths with Sahil (Vivaan Sharma) and Suman (Divya Sharma), and the series keeps teasing us with that encounter. I am not only talking about the scene in Episode 1 where the siblings hitch a ride after missing their school bus. I am also thinking of the scene in which Sahil and Suman, along with their parents, Ashok (Aamir Bashir) and Mona (Sonali Bendre), watch a comet while their father begins talking about death. I don't know why the creators felt the need to highlight certain aspects of the story in such bold letters. When the judge delivers the verdict at the end, the camera slowly moves closer to Ashok and Mona to zoom in on their emotions and convey that even though the correct judgment may have been passed, two human beings are dead, and nothing will bring them back. The close-up already conveys the parents' private grief, yet the series proceeds to rub it in your face by first clearing the courtroom and then leaving the parents sitting alone for a few more seconds. The creators also make a terrible miscalculation by including the scene where Rajjo starts attacking his niece after she tells him she wants to become an actor. There is something sensational about it. It reeks of bad taste.
Raakh, though, gets so many crucial things right that the flaws don't matter. There is something chilling about the fact that Rajjo and Babu are seen moving freely through streets, gurudwaras, and train compartments. The vile killers are sentenced to death and hanged, but Raakh whispers, "What about, say, men like Rajjo's brother-in-law who hit their wives and daughters?" Given that it is a war hero whose family is affected, I recalled Subedaar, where a soldier who may once have been deployed at the border to protect the nation now faces insults and assaults from a local gangster. Even in Dhurandhar, Jaskirat's family is assaulted while he is at the academy preparing himself to serve the nation. What's the use of protecting the country from an external enemy when Indians themselves are harassing fellow Indians?
Raakh constantly shifts between two timelines, lending the series the quality of puzzle pieces slowly falling into place. It's sufficiently engaging, and it makes you hold your breath in anticipation of THAT moment. It arrives in the end, and although for much of the series I wondered whether the creators should depict the assault on the children explicitly or suggest it through imagery, I didn't mind their decision to choose the former—in a sensitive manner—because the scene places greater emphasis on Sahil and Suman's bravery. It presents them as heroes. It helps that both Divya and Vivaan are astonishingly good. It also helps that the series establishes the family's atmosphere through brief, beautiful moments like singing and dancing at a party and watching a comet together. Sahil also tells Suman some delightfully bad jokes. We come to like the siblings; we develop tender feelings for them. And so, when they die, it is not at all pleasant to witness their agony.
Perhaps this is why I absolutely loved the ending. It revises history like a beautiful dream; it also spotlights how powerful the cinematic medium can be. The scene is all grace and beauty until the "balanced view" pops up in your mind. If Suman and Sahil had not taken the lift, Rajjo and Babu would not have gone to the hospital, and they would have continued committing horrible crimes for a longer period of time. Suddenly, the lovely ending starts to both cradle you and pinch your skin. You behold it with a sad, complicated smile. Make of that what you will.
Final Score - [7.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times