In my short career as a journalist so far, I have never once felt such a strong urge to write a piece about a movie. Since the new century has begun, number of films have tried to break the mould. Be it a DDLJ or a Border or a K3G or a Gadar or most recently a Black. Masterpieces in their own rights, they have been impressive but not to an extent of touching me as a person. But Rang De Basanti has managed to the impossible. There may have been reviews or features in the past, but this one comes straight from the heart. And that too when the director at the helm is, as termed in Bollywood, an 'outsider'.

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. The very same person who was written off after his highly experimental 'Aks' (coming at the turn of the century) that inspite of technical brilliance, didn't work with most.

Everyone was cynical about this movie, including me. The thought was, there has been an overkill of 'deshbhakti' movies in last decade or so, so how would RDB be any different? Also, in his last two movies [Lagaan, Mangal Pandey] dealing with fight against British, Aamir Khan had camera focused on him all the time (though there was a 'Dil Chahta Hai' in between). So there were apprehensions galore about RDB because one wondered if other talented actors like Madhavan, Atul Kulkarni, Sidharth, Kunal Kapoor and Sharman Joshi would get completely overshadowed. To make matters more confusing (though in hindsight it seems to be a smart strategy), the promos hardly told any story.

Hence with an outright biased mindset and not many hopes, I stepped in my favorite PVR multiplex, a full 3 days after the movie released to check it out. And the rest, as they say, is history!

I was awed when the intermission point came. And completely speechless when the movie ended. It was simply unbelievable. Now the thought process changed gears from being cynical to highly appreciative. Afterall how could a director convey a strong message in such an entertaining manner without once attempting to resort to jingoism, melodrama or larger than life characters. But this was what Rakeysh Mehra succeeded in doing so. And he proved that for a movie to work, more than anything else, script and the screenplay are just the two pillars required. Add in a bunch of highly capable actors, spend a fortune in publicity (great job UTV) and benefit from a controversy a day for a fortnight before the release (again, great job UTV!) and you have people ready across country to shell as much as Rs. 200 per ticket.

Every bit of screenplay seemed to have been rehearsed for perfection. Every actor chosen with precision. Every location selected after due research. And every dialogue written with great effort. When you have all these necessary ingredients for a film ready, it would have only required the actors to commit a blunder to not deliver! Mehra's troupe didn't disappoint him there. In fact exceeded expectations. For the sole reason that each of them believed that they were an Aamir Khan in themselves. An actor who could carry a movie on his own. Whether it was Sidharth, Madhavan, Kunal, Atul, Sharman or even Soha Ali Khan and Alice - they had such well defined roles in their hands that all they had to do was believe in themselves and instill a confidence in themselves that without any of them the movie would fall!

To say that the script was unusual would be to state the obvious. And this is where Mehra's strength lied. He never sold his movie as 'different'. And he played with his audience when he threw a spanner saying RDB is 'not a patriotic film'. Keeping the movie's script about the merge of past and present close to his heart, he threw an ace on the table when the first show of the movie commenced. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru - the opening sequence featuring the three freedom fighters was good enough reason for audience to hold back on their popcorn and instead look at the screen. Where did this come from? And what are people like Sidharth and Sharman doing on screen in prisoner's outfits. Weren't they supposed to be college yuppies driving bikes in night on the streets of New Delhi? Which time zone is the movie about? Hey, let me check this out....sounds interesting!