BECOMING A HERO: HOW BHEDIYA TRACES THE FORMATION OF IDENTITY

By Ahona

Of the many shots that compose the film Bhediya, that one sequence of a team of forest officials, lumberjacks and city engineers cutting down massive trees was, personally speaking, quite intriguing. A tree collapses to its death, its massive structure crumbling down to the forest floor. It is shot like a tragedy. In that one shot, a film full of comical pop culture references and gags, becomes a sad, contemplative film. Shots like these aren't literal. The felling of a tree does not only refer to the felling of single tree. It is a metaphor for a larger ecological problem. The reason that shot stood out to me was how surprisingly uncharacteristic it is of mainstream Bollywood. Over the last few years (especially the 2021-22 stretch), in a desperate bid to draw in good numbers, Hindi cinema has birthed some films about heroes who fight all odds and earn a bloodied victory. There is no place for a shot like this in films like that. Shots like this freeze cinema in its contemplation. Unlike the hero drama, where every shot builds up to the hero's final explosive showdown, Bhediya uses this shot to show just how environmentally dangerous its male protagonist is. He is the one orchestrating this tragedy of razing an ancient forest to the ground. In fact, most hero dramas feature shots that would build up to the hero's "becoming". There would be shots of him interacting with his friends and family and lover, establishing his tender side. Then, either his mother or sister or girlfriend is disrespected (it has to be a female character). Incensed over this disrespect, the hero would chase a climactic revenge. Through each shot, the hero would become the hero. In its first half, Bhediya consistently destroys the heroic-ness of its male protagonist. He is unrelentingly money-hungry. He laughs at problematic jokes. He is both condescending towards, and suspicious of, the intentions of the natives. He would bribe and manipulate his way out of roadblocks with a nefarious smoothness. Bhaskar begins with neither the moral compass nor the characteristic fearlessness of the quintessential Hindi film hero. In one unintentionally meta cinematic moment, Bhaskar inches close towards film analysis and says "It seems like I am the villain of this story, and Bhediya is the hero." It is an astute observation. It is this self-awareness that makes the film so relevant to cinema and its social context. The moment Bhaskar acknowledges this split self, he marks a shift within Hindi cinema which, no matter how subliminal, holds potential. When Bhaskar becomes aware of his other self, he is immensely distressed by the fact that he is two entities at once. "The Bhediya is within me," he says in a panicked monologue, "and it knows all of my thoughts". The potential this monstrous Bhediya holds is alarming to him. It is only when he discovers the purpose behind that potential, that he understands that he is, in his human form, the male protagonist, an antihero. In his wolf form, he is the hero. His "becoming" of the hero is therefore tied with an "unbecoming" of himself. He wasn't even destined to become this saviour of the forest. The original Bhediya had bitten him to kill him, and he had been saved by chance. He is an accidental saviour. What he does for the forest by devouring those who were cutting it down and tricking natives, was at first unintentional. By the time he stands up as the saviour, he has had to completely lose the person he was. If there was a shot of him overseeing the felling of trees at the beginning, his character arc finds another milestone in a follow-up shot Bhaskar stands in the striking, hypnotic grace of the forest, his hand on a tree, its senescent leaves falling slowly. Bhediya reverses so many tropes through its protagonist, it is hard to keep count. I cannot remember a film from the recent years that details the male body so laboriously. There is, in fact, a violin playing in the background score, as it happens as if this transformation, as painful as it is to Bhaskar the antihero, is also poetic.

the film takes its monster and makes it heroic in intention, and it takes its hero and it makes him monstrous in intention. While a vast number of Hindi films associate the moon with romance, Bhediya associates it with a transformation of the self. But its most significant reversal is its (possibly inadvertent) clapback to another Hindi horror film set in the forest. Kaal is, against the best of my intentions, embedded in my memory. In particular, Kaal's project of extracting its horror out of a native trying to conserve the forest, had seemed oddly self-serving. Of course a film produced by the residents of a bustling metropolis would say that the character trying to protect the forest is the monster, and the city folk are the unsuspecting victims. Ajay Devgan's character, Kaali, was part insane, part haunted, part haunting. He externalises that haunted-ness and sacrifices the tourists to the cause of the forest. In Kaal, the forest was an unforgiving entity, monsters lurking in its shadows. In Bhediya, the forest becomes a magical, transformative space, bustling with a system of life that Bhaskar, the antihero, does not recognise.There are shots within the film where the camera looks at

the forest with an awed, reverent gaze. Almost unwittingly, Bhediya challenges Kaal's thesis and says that we had it wrong all along the monster is the hero, and cinema can make him into the quintessential Hindi film hero - who rises to the task of saving the forest when the female entity is disrespected (the male wolf makes his first, concerted attack when he sets out to protect the female wolf). But to continue to be a hero, Bhaskar must sustain his Bhediya self. And thus, the duality continues in the end. Now Bhaskar is accepting of his alter-ego. He knows he is split into two. Becoming a hero is a journey towards glory, but also a journey of shredding past selves. The film looks back at us with a wolfish grin and says, the first step towards becoming a hero is to ask who the real monster is.