Rani Mukherjee Saves Kota

 The  small but  bustling town  of  Kota  in Rajasthan is where students  descend in droves for coaching in engineering examinations. You can call it the city of middleclass dreams. It is also a nightmare  for  parents who send their  children away  in   the hope of a secure future, and  children who are  unable to cope with  the pressures  of competitive  examinations.

In this sensitive area of educational challenges  which serves  as  a brutal haven  for thousands  of young aspirants, Yash Raj films  have decided  to airdrop a serial rapist,  no less, brutally  violating and  murdering young girls  in  Mardaangi 2.

I think this kind of creative vandalism is  dangerous on many levels.  It isn’t healthy for an environment  of educational challenges to  be reminded what dangers lurk in the shadows of their  aspirations. Parents  of  students studying  in Kota  have spoken personally to me  expressing their  dread and  disgust at what they see as an exploitative  gimmick in  the  guise  of  a socially conscientious cinema.

Having said  this, the trailer  of Mardaangi  2  does have  a certain chilling urgency to  it , a sense of imminent  danger, as  Inspector Shivani Roy takes  on  a faceless serial rapist in Kota.  In the  first film Rani’s khaki  avatar   took  on a vicious human trafficker played  by an actor who  was way too charming to  be  repugnant.  Here  in Part 2  it is a cackling heckling  rapist who challenges the cop-hero(ine) about how  she will find another girl’s body floating  in  a drain  the next morning,  and  what  can she  do about it?

Rani doing a  Dirty Harry in Kota?

Is  this  the kind of cinema we  need? That’s  a difficult  question  to answer.  That’s a very difficult question to  answer. While the banner(Yash Raj) and  the lead actress’ commitment to  creating   cinema that makes us think and  question societal values, is irrefutable, this whole issue-based genre  that  merchandises  catastrophes seems like  a Roland Emmerich film about the Taj Mahal being  bombed  by the Taliban.