I wanted to watch Talvar not because I was looking for an answer as to who murdered Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj the servant, but because I wanted to know how objective had Meghna Gulzar been as a director and moreover had Vishal Bhardwaj done justice as a scriptwriter?
I am not convinced- in fact more than convinced of the masterly skills of both Meghna and Vishal which they have nearly flawlessly executed in the film of 132 minutes.
Produced by Junglee Pictures the film division of The Times of India Group, Talvar is bold, stark and almost creates a new genre in Indian cinema, with its documentary-styled narrative and tight plot which holds all the pieces together to make it an excitable watch.
The facts have been placed before us, the ultimate judges (we as an audience) are invited to create for ourselves an ending, as an intelligent and educated lot.
It’s not deliberate that the title of the film coincides with the title of the family under enquiry, rather it refers to the weapon Lady Justice holds in her right hand to remind us, either ‘all are equal before the eyes of the law’ or ‘none shall escape the striking arm of the law’. What about her being blindfolded? I will not be so knave to comment on that and have a fatwah upon my head!
Real life Talwars are changed into reel life Tandons, Hemraj into Khempal, Krishna into Kanhaiya and the CBI into CDI.
Shruti Tandon (Ayeshsa Parveen) is found murdered with her throat slit in her bedroom in their home in Sameer Vihar of Noida, by her dentist parents Dr. Ramesh Tandon (Neeraj Kabi) and Dr. Nutan Tandon (Konkana Sen Sharma). The local U.P. police arrive led by Inspector Dhaniram (Gajraj Rao) and little short of botch up the complete crime scene- no forensics, no evidence collected, no murder weapon searched for!
The servant Khempal is missing and a search party is organized to smoke him out as he is suspected to be the murderer. Yet within a day or two the investigating teams gets egg on their face when the putrefied body of Khempal is found on the terrace which had been otherwise locked and the keys were not to be found.
Kanhaiya an assistant in Dr. Rajesh’s clinic, a close friend of Khempal is rounded up and germinates the seed of doubt into Dhaniram’s head, that of honor killing. Khempal was found in a compromising position with Shruti by Rajesh who in a rage of temper struck both of them and killed them and with the assistance of his wife dumped the body on the terrace.
Dr. Rajesh is taken into custody, charge-sheeted, produced before court and sent to judicial custody. The case catches the attention of the media and under immense pressure is handed over to Ashwin Kumar (Irrfan Khan) of the CDI (central Department of Investigation).
Through meticulous means and ways, Ashwin then put forth a new theory: there were others present that night in the flat who were the actual killers. He is just so close to the truth when his senior officer retires and a new man takes over. The ugly head of corruption is like Hydra, for every one you cut; two new ones grow in its place.
Ashwin is thrown out and later moved into the academic circles for new recruits and a new investigation team is set into motion.
Every step of the narrative is as close as possible to the facts of the case and one can make out that the team has put in loads of research.
Irrfan and Konkona are outstanding and I see no one else essaying their respective roles with such brilliance. The only wonder is why in anyone’s name was Tabu roped in? Was she perhaps the first choice for playing Nutan?
Well that’s something you will have to figure out- but for now, don’t even think of missing Talvar.
4/5