Aiyya-re aiyya! Ye kya kiya re?
As per the recent economic aiyaary of Pradhan Mantri Modiji, writer-director Neeraj Pandey is gainfully employed as far as his latest film is concerned. During his two-hour-fortyminute film, he successfully manages to turn our functional brains into runny batter and then deep-fries it all into many crispy pakodas.
Agar aap soch rahe hain what aiyaary means, then let me save you some money and long spells of shifting listlessly in cinema seats. An Arabic word, it means cunning, craftiness, the ultimate trickery. And here it’s a title bestowed upon Col. Abhay Singh (Manoj Bajpayee) by militants in the Valley because he, we are told, is a master of disguises who won’t be killed. We witness one rather inept attempt to off him.
But Neeraj Pandey’s film is not about that. That’s just a minor sidelight, unlike the major sidelight about Babloo the sick dog from Colaba, which, at some rather belated point in the film, takes centrestage and walks the film to its climax.
The film is not really about Babloo the sick dog either. It’s about many sick but powerful dogs who are gnawing at the great institution that is the Indian Army from inside and outside.
Army Chief (Vikram Gokhale) set up a hushhush mission of seven officers, led by Col. Abhay Singh, to do stuff that’s so covert that it’s kept a secret from us as well. One of the secret seven, Maj. Jai Bakshi (Sidharth Malhotra), goes rogue and is now threatening to compromise others. Babloo the sick dog holds the clue as to why.
All we know of the secret seven is that in Cairo, despite having the orderly produce vitamin ki golis when asked to give bandook ki golis, Abhay is able to shoot a man. Who that was, or what bad-bad thing he did we know not. All we know is that he was
taklu, had a mean expression and we see him pass something to another man. The handing over was shifty, so we must assume that it was not a shagun ka lifafa. Meanwhile, rogue Jai is tossing `10 coins in the air to take critical decisions — for example, to do desh bhakti or become desh drohi.
His decision splits the world of Aiyaary into two. In Group A, which is the bad guys ka group, the link-chain goes like this: Maj. Jai has been engaged by Lt. Col. Gurinder Singh (Retd.) who works for exArmy guy Mukesh Kapoor (Adil Hussain). Kapoor, a big arms dealer in London, is the CEO of Armour Inc. and rather close to some Czech arms people who are trying to push some weapons to the Indian Army. Jai is assigned to eavesdrop and record incriminating stuff, and he does that with the help of IT whiz Sonia (Rakul Preet Singh), a civilian he’s sweet on. He has also parked a cranky old man and Babloo the sick dog in Seema Lodge, Pahadganj.
Group B is the good group and is led by the Army Chief who is offered bribe to push the Czech deal through. If he doesn’t, Gurinder promises to expose his secret mission of seven, along with their links to Mossad, CIA, KGB and other such. Now, I would have imagined that this would be good for the reputation of the Indian Army, but apparently not.