Atrangi Re: A Reflection on India’s Distorted Struggles or a Mismatched Band-Aid?
By Rhea Mehta, Edited by Vera Wang and Ben Glickman
A girl on the run. The streets of a small town in rural Bihar painted with rain. A bustling train station littered with an onslaught of broken glass bottles. This is how the Hindi-language film Atrangi Re (2021) begins. What ensues is a twisted love story rooted in a complicated depiction of mental illness, cultural and religious differences, and toxic love set to the beat of a toe-tapping soundtrack. The director, Aanand L. Rai, tries to have a new take on the traditional love triangle, and to his credit, there is little boredom throughout the two-and-a-half-hour movie. The film utilizes similar tropes that Hindi cinema has employed for years, emphasizing shock rather than clean exposition. Yet, even though this film stumbles through its messy conclusions about the subjects it is dealing with, it captures a portrait of where Indian society lies with these issues, and explores a nuanced message on where to go next. Atrangi Re, emerging at a transformative time for Indian cinema, captures and tackles these different social and cultural shifts through its choice to use mental illness as a framing narrative device, delving into the state of regional and religious tensions in India through casting and cinematography, and how all of this impacts the state of the modern musical in Bollywood.
Atrangi Re captures a colorful love story, to say the least. It follows the story of Rinku (Sara Ali Khan), a young girl plagued by the trauma of losing her parents and being beaten down by her torturous family, who view her as nothing more than vermin. She is forcefully married to Vishu (Dhanush), a Tamil man who will be engaged to someone else in a matter of days. On the train back to Delhi, Rinku and Vishu realize neither of them wants to be in this marriage. Rinku reveals she is in love with Sajjad Ali Khan (Akshay Kumar), a Muslim man with whom she has tried to elope many times before, though her attempts have always been foiled. Their divorce is the easiest solution until Rinku’s quiet teasing becomes a drug, and suddenly, everything changes. When Vishu brings Rinku to his engagement in Tamil Nadu, the tug-of-war begins between Vishu’s duty to Mandy (Dimple Hayathi), his almost fiancee, and his growing feelings for Rinku. When Mandy finds out about his marriage through a YouTube video, Vishu defends Rinku against the vile comments Mandy’s family slings at her, consolidating his choice in choosing Rinku over Mandy. After returning to Delhi, Vishu delivers a heart-wrenching monologue to Rinku about his feelings in Tamil.
Vishu’s love confession marks a shift, in not only the movie but also the representation of South Indians within Hindi language cinema. He delivers the climax of the first act, a dramatic love confession, in his native Tamil. While this might not be revolutionary to some, Bollywood has had a previously hard time expanding its borders. Hindi-language cinema, known in the mainstream as “Bollywood,” has largely been insulated for a long time. It has primarily given a platform to North Indian stories and artists, emphasizing the fair, attractive Hindu as the ideal. It also goes so far as to stereotype actors from other parts of India, especially South India, as unruly, violent or unable to speak English fluently, causing even more division and animosity within the regional cinemas. And yet, recently, Bollywood has changed its tune. Fuelled by the rise of pan-India movies, such as Baahubali: The Beginning, a 2015 Telugu language film that is the highest-grossing film in Indian history, and RRR (2022), India’s first homegrown Oscar winner, Bollywood is now forced to look to the South– to what many consider is the future of Indian cinema. The film industry of South India, which consists of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam language cinemas- colloquially known as Tollywood- is quickly becoming one of the largest industries in the world and many actors are now crossing between industries, including Dhanush, who plays Vishu (Saran 28). Yet, while previous movies have addressed this cultural dichotomy poorly, Atrangi Re handles the divide with care, threading the difference between Vishu and Rinku’s cultures. To have a Tamil star deliver a dramatic monologue in Tamil without subtitles in a big Hindi musical and have a primarily Hindi-speaking crowd reacting so emotionally to the words breaks a big roadblock in the creation of diverse Indian cinema. Moreover, to see a speechless Rinku grasp what he means without knowing the exact words proves that sentiment lies within the actor, not the language, thereby, explores larger, genuine diversity within Hindi cinema without the pretension or overdramatization of it. Their differing cultures are presented as parts of their identities instead of as caricatured portrayals or reasons why the two cannot be together. This inclusion of Tamil on screen, along with the unfiltered appreciation Vishu has for his culture, and the correct casting of a South Indian actor is blazing the right path towards a more diverse and inclusive form of storytelling.
Unfortunately, Vishu’s monologue ends abruptly due to Sajjad’s arrival. When Vishu’s friend Madhsudhan (Ashish Verma), known as MS, catches up to Rinku, he realizes that Sajjad is not real, but merely a vivid delusion. This transforms the movie from a simple love story into an almost do-or-die situation, as Vishu and MS race to find a way to ‘save’ Rinku and bring her back. This is when the movie begins losing its grip on a coherent narrative. What follows is a mismatched attempt at addressing mental illness, as Vishu and MS realize that the story she tells about her love story with Sajjad is true and may be the love story of her parents, as the trauma of losing her parents caused her to adopt a savior figure whom she fell in love with. While they never name the illness Rinku suffers, audiences recognize it as a paracosm, or “a prolonged fantasy world developed by children” that may include “definite geography, language, and history” (Konkin 5). Paracosms are usually associated with children creating vast fantasy worlds as forms of escape that rarely intersect with reality, but Atrangi Re tries to explore this through the idea of childhood trauma. Atrangi Re does utilize real science in the construction of its fantasy, with a literature review conducted by Serena Konkin “Between Worlds: Paracosms as Imaginal Liminality in Response to Trauma” on the subject of paracosms identifying that if a child is subject to some form of intense childhood trauma, it might become “paracosmic, returning through a fantasy world to the unbroken self in the original safe and nurturing place” (Konkin 10). Rinku watching her parents burn to death would definitely be classified as a form of intense childhood trauma that could lead to a paracosm. The problem here with the depiction of mental illness lies in the way through which the writer, Himanshu Sharma, adopts it into the script. This form of disorder would not lead to such a seamless interaction between the fantasy and the real world and might cause more drastic responses as the person alternates between the two. Vishu and MS treat Rinku’s illness as an obstacle rather than a diagnosis, disposing of all their years of medical school immediately to favor the narrative that love solves all.
Sharma realizes the mental and social barriers that people have with mental illness–with the main conceptions being the way through which it hinders love and marriage–shapes it into an actual obstacle, and treats it as such, causing major discrepancies in the way the characters interact with it. The title itself, Atrangi Re, translates to “funnily weird” according to the director, dictating the way through which Rai explores this manifestation of mental illness (HT Entertainment Desk). Rinku’s paracosm is given a space in the real world, and it seems like all but Vishu and MS can recognize that. Sajjad lives, breathes, and interacts with Rinku’s daily life through Rinku, and it feels like Sharma introduces Rinku’s hot-headed, loud behavior as a vehicle to channel Sajjad through. However, Sharma barely fleshes out Sajjad’s character, using him only at specific intervals to create space between Vishu and Rinku, who are already reciprocating love by the film’s intermission. Sharma also poorly frames the use of medicine to overcome illness, choosing to display physical manifestations, like Sajjad getting hurt while shaving or falling out of a tree, as examples of the medicine working instead of the numbness associated with taking most trauma disorder medication. MS also says particularly harmful things such as “She should have been in a museum in France but she is roaming around the streets of Delhi” (1:18:01) and “no one has understood mental disorders to this day” (1:06:21). These sentiments, coming specifically from a person like MS, a doctor of psychiatry, leave a grim taste.
Moreover, Sharma and Rai sacrifice comprehension in favor of a big spectacle as they save the final revelation, which is when Rinku confronts the trauma of watching her parents burn and realizes she has adopted her dad as her lover. Instead of slowly grappling with this process, the tension is released all at once in a dramatic retelling– a lost opportunity in otherwise seamless storytelling. Sharma also forgoes expanding on the consequences of the fact that Rinku has been in a relationship (albeit an imaginary one) with her father and this is perhaps the most disturbing part of the story. In order to accentuate the drama, there are many gaps in the logic of the screenplay, with Rinku remembering her parents in one scene but not recognizing that her lover and father have the same face. The story also loses coherency when they choose to cast Sara Ali Khan as both Rinku and her mother, making the final revelation even more confusing. The narrative interweaves itself constantly as it tries to normalize the plot twist and realize the consequences of living as and loving someone with mental illness. Yet, it fails to do so in any meaningful way, romanticizing the illness through its rapid dramatization and resolution.
Moreover, at the core of the trauma lies the state of Hindu-Muslim relations in India. Sajjad is only separated from Rinku’s mother due to his religion, with her family interfering and even getting him imprisoned. This touches a deep note at the center of India’s political strife. The Hindu-Muslim hatred, now at an all-time high due to the leadership of Prime Minister Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (known commonly as “BJP”), has propagated laws and violence against the religious minority since being elected to power in 2014 (Maizland). But the hatred between Muslims and Hindus stretches back to the Partition of India, and for many small towns, the wounds of that time still have not healed. The relationship between Manjari and Sajjad, Rinku’s parents, ends in an honor killing. This is an unfortunately realistic outcome in this kind of situation, and the abuse that Rinku suffers at the hands of her grandmother, including physical beatings and her eventual forced marriage, seems to carry the weight of her parents’ choices. This movie, however, must be applauded for not villainizing the relationship, but rather, taking it one step further and exploring the extent to which incidents like these impact young children. As Rinku grapples with her trauma in the last scene, all of the twisted hatred comes pouring out, serving to highlight the pain of this situation.
Yet, what saves the twisted plot and the distorted lens of mental illness is Aanand L. Rai’s direction. From the choices in cinematography and color to the use of music within the narration and the depiction of reality, Rai shapes an interesting modern musical. It draws from the conventions of Bollywood musicals before it while engaging with a drastically different story. It uses music and dance as tools of exposition to expand the story rather than one of escapism. It never takes us out of the world, unlike other Bollywood musicals that thrive on expanding the scope of the world beyond physical space, jumping from Mumbai to Switzerland and back in just a few cuts. Moreover, the cinematography is subtle, allowing you to seep into the dusty Bihar, Delhi placed under the weight of expectation and smog, and Chennai, adorned in love. Sprinkled into the films are breathtaking close-ups, focusing on the actor’s eyes, the community, and the hidden feelings of lust and love that emerge from beneath their eyelashes. The color grading of the movie focuses on contrasting the warm and cool hues between the people and the background, centering the four central people in the narrative, and obscuring everyone else.
Yet, the aspect of the movie that makes it a masterpiece is allowing the audience to gloss over all the twisted paths the script takes is the soundtrack. You have definitely heard of A.R. Rahman, even if you don’t think you have: the Oscar and Grammy-winning music composer of Slumdog Millionaire (2008), A.R. Rahman- a musical genius. His music breathes life into this film and is the heart of what the heart of making things tick on screen. A large part of the movie is underscored by “Rait Zara Si”, a beautifully heart-breaking ballad with a distinct melody that rests in the back of your mind, guiding you to focus on the important elements. As Rai explains in an interview with Forbes India, the reason Rahman’s music clicks is that “it’s not the words or the scene or the structure he is catching, but the feelings. That’s why when you listen to his music, it reaches deep down inside” (Shekhar). “Garda”, a folk song with a stronger influence of percussion than the other songs, is used to underscore more passionate, energetic moments, with its strong presence of drums and dholaks. “Toofan ki Kudi” serves as Rinku’s anthem and the film draws in the feelings of longing and angst through “Tere Rang”, a personal favorite, and “Tumhein Mohabbat Hain”. The film balances the sadness demanded by the script with moments of life through “Chaka Chak” and “Little Little”, two more upbeat, directly engaging songs that have since gone viral in the music industry. Ultimately, the film would not have had such a profound emotional impact if not for the score, which not only helped illuminate what the audience should be feeling but also connected different moments in the film that were similar in theme.
Atrangi Re does a better, more subtle job of integrating its music and dance sequences than the larger mainstream industry. While musical sequences have been considered as disruptive by some critics, like Satyajit Ray, Kobita Sarkar and Chidananda Dasgupta (Gehlwat and Dudrah 1), the lip-synced song and dance sequences provide the narrative with an easy and spectacular way to bring the inner monologue of a character to the forefront. In “Little Little”, Vishu (in a song sung by the actor himself, which is rare in Indian Cinema) dances out his delirious drunken pleasure of being in love with Rinku, a small escape from the monotony of the failed attempts at curing her. This moment brings forth such joy from Rinku that she kisses him, progressing the plot more in those few minutes than what hours of tension possibly could have. Similarly, in “Chaka Chak”, an item number that was integrated into the film, Vishu’s attraction to Rinku is displayed through his reactions to Rinku’s dancing. It is interesting, however, that Rai chose to place this ‘item number,’ a dance sequence of raunchy movements and risqué lyrics with little relation to the plot line, in a wedding (Saraogi 7). ‘Item numbers’ are usually in movies to attract crowds with their catchy lyrics and tune, pushing engagement for both the film and the soundtrack. They are usually very important due to the heavy links between the film and music industries in India, with the music market being primarily composed of movie soundtracks until recent shifts with Indian artists like Prateek Kuhad coming into the industry. “Chaka Chak”, therefore, is a less fetishized dance number but is a lingering manifestation of Bollywood’s monetization problem, appealing to the sensibilities of the audience through historically proven tricks, like having a beautiful dancer come in for only one number to increase publicity, rather than only through filmmaking. This movie, therefore, takes a twist on the traditional Indian musical.
The Indian movie experience is a delicate art that has been in the making for decades. In the face of rapid globalization and a cultural foreign invasion in the 1990s, India developed the music and dance sequences that live in modern cultural memory. Moving away from the violent films of the 80s and the social issue-driven films of the Golden Age of Bollywood, Bollywood musicals such as Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge found a new formula for success with the family film, swapping fight scenes for increasingly sophisticated and highly choreographed musical sequences (Anjaria 322). Rising from the standard seven songs to ten, twelve, or even fourteen, these movies became jukeboxes for the soundtrack instead of narratives in their own right. Shrinking away from this extreme, musicals now have between five to seven songs, and Atrangi Re, with six songs, is right in the sweet spot. A modern musical in its own right, it refuses to transport the audience to the hills of Switzerland, a surprisingly common theme, and its imaginary dreamlands on large sets. Even though its premise stretches believability, the story never leaves real time, jumping or skipping time like Bollywood musicals of the past are notorious for. Therefore, this reformed musical retains all the continuity of a realistic melodrama but sprinkles in moments of spectacle, making the film simmer as it burns back and forth between realism and fantasy.
This movie is complicated yet simple; a modern musical with little music and a social issue-focused drama that cannot address the topic it has chosen to engage with head-on. Yet, it accomplishes what I consider the greatest thing a movie can do- it delivers an opportunity for discussion. Despite its questionable attempt at tackling mental illness, the discourse that this film generates based on how it tackles mental illness raises important questions about mental health and stigma within our country; additionally, the seamless unity presented between the different cultures of its protagonists offers a challenge to other movies to cross state lines and represent more than one demographic. It tackles many different trends and shifts, releasing a deeply fractured but tightly bound portrait of trauma and love, consolidating a new perspective on past conclusions.
Works Cited
Anjaria, Ulka. Understanding Bollywood: The Grammar of Hindi Cinema. 2021, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429293726.
Gehlawat, Ajay, and Rajinder Dudrah. “The Evolution of Song and Dance in Hindi Cinema.” South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 15, no. 2-3, 2 Sept. 2017, pp. 103–108, https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2017.1407547.
HT Entertainment Desk. “Aanand L Rai on Age Gap between Sara, Her Atrangi Re Co-Stars: ‘Watch the Film.’” Hindustan Times, 25 Nov. 2021,
www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/aanand-l-rai-on-sara-ali-khan-s-age-ga p-with-atrangi-re-co-stars-akshay-kumar-dhanush-we-have-habit-of-judging-people-10163 7810059850.html.
Maizland, Lindsay. “India’s Muslims: An Increasingly Marginalized Population.” Council on Foreign Relations, 4 July 2022,
www.cfr.org/backgrounder/india-muslims-marginalized-population-bjp-modi. Saran, Renu. History of Indian Cinema. Diamond Pocket Books, 2012.
Saraogi, Avantika, "The Bollywood Item Number: From Mujra to Modern Day Ramifications" (2013). Scripps Senior Theses. 215.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/215
Shekhar, Divya J. “A R Rahman: A Sound in the Making.” Forbes India, 6 Jan. 2023, https://www.forbesindia.com/article/showstoppers-202223/a-r-rahman-a-sound-in-the-making/82373/1.
Rai, Anand L, director. Atrangi Re. Accessed 21 June. 2023.
https://www.hulu.com/watch/1c94b4b3-2fa1-49b8-9400-14c8bfe369e5