Dinesh Kamath's view of movie Kalyug (1981)

Before I start telling you something about the film Kalyug (1981), let me tell you that I'm not referring to the latest film Kalyug which had Emraan Hashmi in the lead role. I'm talking about Shyam Benegal's Kalyug which was made in 1981 and which had Shashi Kapoor, Victor Banerjee, Rekha, Anant Nag, Supriya Pathak and some others playing important roles. Now I'll tell you why I had loved the film so much. The thing is our epic Mahabharat has many interesting characters. It is a very well written epic. The characterizations in the epic are simply marvelous. Whoever wrote it was a genius. There are two characters in Mahabharat who impress me particularly. Those two characters are Karna and Abhimanyu. I am their fan. Both the characters are powerful personalities. It is said that Karna alone was much mightier than all the five Pandavas put together. If there was anybody who could wipe of Pandavas it was Karna and nobody else Karna lost his life in the Kurukshetra battle by sheer fluke. Had he not died, the epic Mahabharat would have a different tale to tell. Had he remained alive, Mahabharat would have an entirely different climax. You must be wondering why I'm talking about Mahabharat when I had begun by writing about Kalyug. That's because Kalyug is inspired by Mahabharat. Kalyug is supposed to be the modern day Mahabharat. I loved Shashi Kapoor's role in Kalyug particularly because he was supposed to be the modern day Karna in the film. The film has Victor Banerjee playing the character Dhanraj and his character is inspired by Duryodhan. The film depicts Shashi Kapoor as loyal to Victor Banerjee. He is so much indebted to Victor that he is prepared to do anything for him, even give up his life. The movie depicts Shashi Kapoor as supporting Victor in his bloody battle against three brothers whose roles are played by Raj Babbar, Kulbhushan Karbanda and Anant Nag. Actually Shashi Kapoor too is the blood brother of these three characters but he is unaware of the fact until the mother of three whose role is played by Sushma Seth approaches Shashi and tells him that he too is her own son. Now the character of Sushma Seth is inspired by Kunti of Mahabharat. When Shashi becomes aware of who he actually is there is a conflict that takes place in his mind. He is unable to decide whether to continue supporting Victor or whether he should join his three actual brothers. He makes an attempt to make peace between the two but he loses his own life and Victor too is shown as committing suicide. So this is the story of Kalyug in short. Actually Mahabharat is the only Indian work I admire most. Otherwise I'm the fan of quite many Western writers like Mario Puzo, James Hadley Chase, Erle Stanley Gardner, Ayn Rand and so on. I had begun reading Western writers at a very young age. The first Western writer I began reading was Enid Blyton. I read countless novels written by her. After that I began to get attracted towards the books written by other Western writers. I really don't know why this epic Mahabharat appealed to me to such a great extent. I still don't know how this marvelous epic touched my heart Maybe I could personally identify with some of the characters in the epic. I fell deeply in love with the epic Mahabharat after I saw all the episodes based on the epic that was shown on Television. The TV serial was brilliantly made by B R Chopra and his son Ravi Chopra. Now I know why foreigners, particularly Americans, are the fans of Lord Krishna. Now I realize why these foreigners are attracted to the organization called ISKCON (International Society of Krishna Consciousness). These foreigners simply love the Hindu's holy book Bhagwad Gita which is the most important and vital part of Mahabharat. Krishna is my favourite God too. Before I stop writing I would like to tell all of you to just watch the film Kalyug (1981) in case you get your hand at its DVD. Then you'll know why I found the film so appealing. That's all for now! Bye!