Hathyar (1989)

Hathyar is the story of a simple Thakur (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), who comes to Bombay with his wife (Asha Parekh) and son, Avinash (Sanjay Dutt) only to find the same lawlessness he thought he left behind. Thakur sahib makes earthen toys of an era that has long ceased; his wife laments the living conditions while his son’s angst for antiquated ideals and anger for not being able to find a job makes him resentful. Thakur warms up to his neighbour Samiulla Khan (Rishi Kapoor), a musician, who like him believes in doing the right thing even if means severing ties with his only brother, a feared don called Khushal Khan (Dharmendra). Falsely accused of robbing his employer Thakur loses his job and when everything fails, he turns to Khushal for help. Khan helps Thakur largely because of Samiulla and they become friends. Things take an ugly turn when a dejected Thakur commits suicide and Avinash turns to crime to support his mother. When Avi is caught picking pockets Khushal bails him out and chastises him for tarnishing his father’s memory. Things get worse as Avinash mistakenly kills a cop and Khushal advises him to leave the city till he can sort things out. Back in the village the feud between Avi’s family and Suman’s (Amrita Singh), the girl he loves, compels him to kill her uncle. Hathyar is a film where the best of commercial cinema such as the stars and the canvas meet the best of art-house. Image Source: Cineplot Once back, Khushal realizes that there is a killer within Avinash that can’t be suppressed and decides to use him as his weapon, hathyar. Samiulla tries to drill sense into Avi but by then he is stuck between Khushal and his rival Anna (Paresh Rawal). Although panned for being Hindi cinema’s worst phase, the 1980s surprisingly were very good for the urban crime thriller that might have come about with films such as Baazi (1951), Shree 420 (1955), CID (1956) and Nau Do Gyarah (1957) but finally came to be recognized as a genre it wasn’t until Deewar (1975). It was thanks to the trail blazed by the parallel cinema that the authenticity of Aakrosh (1980), Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai (1981) and Ardh Satya (1983) rubbed off popular cinema and as a result Mashaal (1984), Arjun (1985) and Meri Jung (1985) stood apart. Hathyar is a film where the best of commercial cinema such as the stars and the canvas meet the best of art-house in terms of an overpowering sense of realism that allows the film to remain organic. Yes, there is the typical shoot-out, the set action pieces, the songs et al. yet Hathyar rarely loses its grip. The influence of parallel cinema on Hathyar is more than evident in the minimalism that overpowers the narrative with terse writing and very basic shot taking. Even the blocking and the extensive use of extreme close-ups are unlike what the actors might have been used to and the minimalistic background score and the sound design enhance their performances. Like the art-house influence, Hathyar’s effect on Parinda (1989) and Satya (1998), two films that went on to epitomize the urban crime genre, isn’t hidden. Although Hathyar released a few months before Parinda, it wouldn’t be totally correct to say it influenced the latter but had the former been as successful at the box-office then the silent bond between the Khushal and Samiulla and the urban alienation might have been as lauded as Parinda’s. In Satya, the scene where Satya is trapped inside the cinema hall is a complete ode to Hathyar where a rival gang member similarly recognizes Avinash in the restroom during the interval. In that light, Hathyar is perhaps the last of the greats in the genre that totally transformed a decade later into urban chic with Satya and Company (2002). Hathyar has you at hello and this is primarily due to its excellent casting. It’s not only that the principal characters have been cast to type as who else but Sanjay Dutt as the silent one with a killer inside who gets off the moment you place a gun in his hands, or Dharmendra as the don unable to get over the anguish of being forced into a life of crime, or Rishi Kapoor as the upright musician who wouldn’t trade his ideals for convenience but it’s the manner in which their image is used. It’s almost as if Dutta plays to the gallery by picking up his actors based on their image but then restraints them from resorting to histrionics by not giving them enough room and opting for minimalism across the board. As the film reaches its climax you can’t help but wonder why did Hathyar end up being an average grosser? Perhaps its hopelessness didn’t ring well with an audience that was somewhat tired of such themes. Or as pointed out by author Jai Arjun Singh in his remarkable treatise, it could have been an inherent lack of clarity that couldn’t decide if Avinash was “an amoral sociopath with aggression running in his veins or a pawn of fate” that might have been Hathyar‘s undoing. But regardless Hathyar is a film that needs to be talked about more and revisited. Another thing that makes Hathyar unique is that it doesn’t really have the so-called stamp of a filmmaker and could have been easily directed by a Rahul Rawail as a follow-up to Arjun, a Subhash Ghai after Meri Jung or a Vidhu Vinod Chopra close on the heels of a Parinda or even a post-Mashaal Yash Chopra and in that unlikely way is the perfect tribute to popular Hindi cinema. Cinema Obscura – A weekly space that celebrates films obscured between the unforgettable and the long forgotten. 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