Dinesh Kamath's column on film 'Bandook' that was published in Newsband

Bandook is a film related to crime. The film has Aditya Om, Manisha Kelkar, Arshad Khan and Ashish Kotwal playing important roles. Music Director is Nikhil Kamath. Lyricists are Shiv Sagar and Aditya Om. Editor is Nilesh Gavand and cinematography are by P. Amar Kumar, Siddharth Kay and Devashish Sarkaar. Hitesh Modak is in charge of sound.

Actress Manisha Kelkar, who is the part of the movie Bandook, plays a village girl Kajri and credits director Aditya Om for teaching her the nuances of her character. It was very different since she had to learn a lot, how she would sit, stand and all, how would she behaved. Her director Aditya Om taught her everything.

Union Minister Kapil Sibal is all set to make his Bollywood debut as a lyricist for the movie Bandook. The film is the directorial debut of Telugu actor Aditya Om who met Sibal at an event and requested the Minister if he could pen a song or two for his movie based on the gun culture. They were both attending a musical programme in Mumbai when someone introduced him to Sibal. He got to know Sibal was a poet and asked if he could pen a few songs for them. Sibal wanted to know something about the film and so Om sent him links of the publicity material, including the last-recorded song by Jagjit Singh and another song by Rekha Bhardwaj.

Interestingly, Sibal has also written a song on two young lovers being separated forever without ever having expressed their love to each other. While he was penning the lyrics of this beautiful number, Sibal was also juggling the telecom and HRD ministry. Now that’s called multi-tasking and Sibal is pro at it.

Aditya Singh, also referred to as Aditya Om, is an actor in Telugu language films. Hindi film Bandook is produced and directed by Aditya himself. Bandook is based on a true story. Bandook has Late Jagjit Singh's last song sung for a film. It’s a movie on Uttar Pradesh politics. Bandook is highly acclaimed by print media.

Bandook is the story of nexus between crime and politics and how gun has become an umbilical chord between the two. It traces the journey of Bhola from an ordinary boatman's family to the corridors of power, how he realizes that the ability to pull a trigger is his climbing ladder to respect, acceptability and the ultimate lure..power.

The story moves from ordinary village struggles, to inter gang strifes and finally the altar of elected power, the ultimate purifier. The rustic backdrop of the gangetic plain serves as an ideal foil to the story almost becoming a character. We see Bhola's love, friendships all tested in a ruthless world of deceit and violence. The film does not glorify or condemn anything but strives to remain an unbiased observer.

Om is all charged about his flick Bandook. The film has been inspired by a true life incident that he conceptualized when on one of his nomadic travels in the North India. He met a priest in Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu who was an absconding contract killer from Benares (Varanasi). He was assumed to be dead or missing, but that was not true. Om was moved by his story.

Aditya even tracked his wife, a former nautch girl. And to his shock, she was the head of an underworld gang. She was harbouring political ambitions. He weaved a fictional plot around it and thus Bandook was born. It is a hardcore commercial venture on the lines of Bandit Queen or Omkara dealing with crime and politics. It was a thrilling experience making this film.

Director Aditya Om's Bandook has an interesting mix of singers in his debut venture. Late ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh recorded his last song for them.

The words of the song that Jagjit sang are in shudh Hindi which he said was very rare nowadays. National Award winner Rekha Bharadwaj has rendered an election song. Bandook also marks the comeback of Pakistani singer Altaf Raja who sang for a film in 2010. It's a qawwali of a different kind.

The film needed a blend of rustic and realistic music. Om toured rural interiors and researched folk forms like kajri, thumri, chaiti and poorvi qawwali. Music director Nikhil Kamath reworked on them to widen its appeal while retaining its original flavour. Besides direction, creating the right music was the biggest challenge Om faced and he is happy that the songs have a universal appeal.

Producer-director Aditya Om and his team worked on the script for more than two years, involving research on political dons. What came out of research were unknown facts and startling truths. The first myth which was broken was the ease with which criminals are portrayed executing or killing people. A bahubali challenged him to kill a chicken, and then went to tell him that it was not easy to kill even small animals, leave alone human beings. Om learned that most of the times it was an extreme step taken as a last resort and that the killers intoxicate themselves before executing a hit. After the killing it takes them four to five hours to return to normalcy. One sharpshooter confessed to shivering of thighs even after years of experience.

Since Bandook was a non-starcast film, finding the funds was tough but seeing the research and authenticity of the script, total strangers and acquaintances came forward to help both in terms of resources and funding. People were kind enough to give their premises, including villages (Malunge in Maharashtra) almost for free. Sometimes even the unit food was free.

A crowd gatherer in Uttar Pradesh who used to work professionally for political parties worked free for them and taught them the lessons in man-management and ground communications.

Thus Bandook is a thrilling film, which tells the story of the hinterlands in UP where the gun has become the umbilical chord between crime and politics. Manisha plays Aditya's companion and has changed her look for this film.

Thus Bandook is an interesting film. Do watch it.