Welcome to Sajjanpur appears to be a departure for director Shyam Benegal – but only if you weren’t closely watching.
Tucked into Benegal’s thought-provoking, socially conscious filmography is the rambunctious comedy Mandi (1983) and the meta-narrative Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (1992). Both types of storytelling are present in his satire Welcome to Sajjanpur (2008).
The Hindi film can be rented from Prime Video. To Welcome to Sajjanpur can be traced the line that inspired the name of the comedy group Aisi Taisi Democracy (with democracy pronounced to rhyme with aisi-taisi, or any which way). Ashok Mishra’s brilliant script updates Palkon Ki Chhaon Mein (1977) to examine the seriocomic goings-on in a village that is a microcosm of India.
Despite having undergone a name change from Durjanpur to Sajjanpur, the village is packed with unscrupulous types, starting with Mahadev (Shreyas Talpade). Although Mahadev wants to be a novelist, he is stuck with writing letters on behalf of Sajjanpurians. He does so with reluctance or, depending on the circumstances, perverse relish.
Mahadev’s lust for Kamla (Amrita Rao) compels him to doctor the loving messages she sends her husband in Mumbai. Mahadev also plays messenger between Ramkumar (Ravi Kishan) and the child widow Shobharani (Rajeshwari Sachdev Badola).
When Ramsingh (Yashpal Sharma) wants to grab an election by sending an official complaint that his wife’s Muslim rival is a Pakistani spy, Mahadev obliges – and proves to be all too effective. Sadly for Ramsingh, the hijra Munnibai (Ravi Jhankal) steps up to the challenge –and gets Mahadev to write her election song. Nearly everyone is the village has “Ram” in their names – Ramsakhi (Ila Arun) is desperately trying to get her supposedly cursed daughter Vindhya (Divya Dutta) married.
Some of Ashok Mishra’s satire, about two-timing politicians, false piety and the perilous state of Indian democracy, is so sharp it would not pass muster today. Nuclear energy is coming, it seems, which will power even humans. Mishra also writes a song about the joys of electoral democracy, but the meta-climax takes the film in another, unexpected direction.
Benegal directs an excellent ensemble cast from different schools of acting. From Shreyas Talpade to Yashpal Sharma and Ila Arun to Ravi Kishan, the actors are in top form. (Kishan’s hilarious performance in Laapataa Ladies is surely a tribute to this movie.) Ravi Jhankal is outstanding as the sassy and sensitive Munnibai, who skewers Sajjanpur’s hypocrisy like nobody else.
Also start the week with these films:
Tortoise Under the Earth’ is a haunting portrayal of displacement
In ‘Donnie Brasco’, betrayal is hard when Al Pacino is around
‘Valu’ is a side-splitting comedy with a brilliant cast