Satya: Of Mumbai, Guns and a Poetic Tragedy

“My tears for Satya are as much as they are for the people whom he killed” -Ram Gopal Varma

Ram Gopal Varma’s 1998 film ‘Satya’ is a story about a man named Satya who immigrates to Mumbai in search of livelihood. Under unfortunate and unplanned circumstances, he gets sucked into the Mumbai Underworld. The film tells the story about the two different characteristics of Satya, one as a ruthless cold blooded, deeply sharp minded gangster, parallelly to an emotional, finding happiness in the presence of a loved one kind of a person who desires to marry the girl he loves and wants to settle down with her. The complete title of the film is ‘Satya: The other side of truth’ The word itself translates into ‘Truth’, However Ram Gopal Varma discovers the reality/truth about the human nature of a gangster through his protagonist.

The first shot of the film is off a pyre, quickly cutting to a man filled with rage shooting aimlessly at a newspaper after reading a news he didn’t wanted to read, probably a news which was the ultimate truth, so in a way, before the credits rolls up in the screen, we are introduced to the title of the film; ‘Satya’. A strong and intense voice tells us about the city of Mumbai, which never sleeps, a city which dreams with their eyes open, a city where lights shine high on the skyline, contradictory also a city where a canyon of soundless darkness exist, the dichotomy of which has resulted in a new world, Mumbai Underworld. Under, the existing situations of the city comes a man, this was his story.  

Satya, till date remains a complex character, it’s a tricky thing to analyze such an oscillating, eccentric personality because one is not sure how will he react at a specific situation, he finds himself a work as a waiter in a bar, a series of undesired events aggravates him to defend himself due to which he is prosecuted for pimping, since Satya does not have any money to arrange for the bail nor does he know anybody else in the city that would help him get out of the situation, he is forced to remain in Jail, and yet we are not sure what’s going on inside his head, he hardly expresses any sort of emotions, instead he adjust himself inside the jail and start working there. It is during a fight amongst the jail inmates that he displays his survival instincts and wins Bhiku Mhatre’s heart with his smart timing to show his aggression.

By the time, Satya and Bhiku becomes allies, by this point of the film we are already familiar with power that Bhiku Mhatre holds around the Mumbai crime circuit, but the association between both of them goes a notch higher than merely work related topics, Bhiku asks Satya some ordinary questions to know more about him, He asks him about his whereabouts, and gets a straight answer that ‘how does it matter’, he then tells him about the current circumstances of the city, and asks him how did mustered the courage to go up against him, wasn’t he terrified that he could have been easily killed, Satya tells him that he does not fear death, Bhiku pause for a moment and contemplates the deep rooted inference of that statement from Satya, but a more severely cold reply comes later in the night, when both of them are in their cell, and Bhiku formally asks him about the whereabouts of his family, and Satya answers that he does not have a clue about it, baffled by this response, Bhiku raises a question mark and without hesitating for a even a single moment, Satya replies ‘Perhaps they are dead’. This marks an important moment in the film briefly reflecting the psyche of Satya, where the attempt of anyone to go and dig out his past is simply futile. Either his past is too disturbing that he does not want to discuss it with anyone or he is simply not interested to discuss any events of his past life that would give people a chance to form any sort of preconceived notions about his nature.

     

Satya is a man without a past, and it is this aspect which makes him more dangerous than any other character in the film till that point, because he has nothing to lose, and he has all the capabilities to defend himself and survive in the mayhem that the city of Mumbai brings in his life. On the other hand, we have Bhiku Mhatre, who has grown undeniable lust for power, and that is evident from the fact, when he orchestrates a shootout of a major film producer to prove his worth in the crime circle of the city. Both Bhiku Mhatre and Satya are polar opposite personalities, one is quite straightforward in terms of his desires, and his quest to be at the top of the jungle, whereas the other is calm and composed, who is still trying to figure out the essence of the city.      

In Satya, there is persistent presence of claustrophobic surroundings in most of the scenes, Kalu Mama’s gambling den gives us this sense of suffocation where disproportionate amount of people distends in a fixed area, yet no one complains about it, because as Chandu says “That in our profession, a little crowded atmosphere is an inevitability” The song ‘Goli Maar Bheje Main’ also gives us this sense of confinement, one could almost smell beer out of their breath from a safe distance. The reason for this feel of the film might be because of the nature of the work that these characters are into, Crime. Satya, the film involves people of the lowest hierarchy from Mumbai Underworld. Bhiku and Gang are not the people who controls the modus-operandi at the upper level, they control the ground work of the organization. We do not see a character like Malik Bhai from ‘Company’ who is looking to grow his business exponentially through exploring more options to sustain the power that his gang has over the city of Mumbai, but in Satya we are restricted to a space of life where parallels between what these people do outside their home and what do they do and how they function when they are back to their home at the end of the day. Chandu’s acceptance that there is a dearth of space in Mumbai further establishes a scenario that intersection between living a normal life and changing gears to become gangsters is bound to shrink at some point in time.

The soul of the film is Satya, who has an ambiguous nature, whereas the heart of the film is Bhiku Mhatre, who is evil, and a criminal, but he does not try to hide that fact, in fact it feels he is proud of himself to attain that position. The character of Bhiku Mhatre became a more popular figure than most of the other characters from the film, I’ll go a step further and claim that the character exclaims the mark of the change that Satya, the film brought with itself in the late 90’s. The change of presenting realism with a commercial value in films in a way that engaged audience and provided them a feel of attachment with the characters. Bhiku Mhatre is our quintessential Mumbaikar who understands the dynamics of the city and also the ladder of success in underworld like an encyclopedia, he is rewarded with love and admiration from everyone associated with him, but it was through Satya, that he really found someone worth calling a close friend, someone whom he can trust blindly without having any second doubts. An admiring feature between their relationship is how Bhiku becomes protective of Satya, always trying to tease him, this beautiful relationship between them is in a sense like Bhiku is trying to make Satya get used to the madness that the city and the profession brings with itself, whereas on the other hand, Satya controls the short temperament of Bhiku who in a lot of situation let his inner emotions get a better hold of ideal decisions that should have been taken in certain circumstances. Satya, in a lot of ways act as the decision maker on behalf of Bhiku and makes him understand a point that in their business, it’s the fear in the minds of peoples that will profit them and not their deaths. 

Two precise scenes summarize the relationship between Satya and Bhiku, both the scenes where they facing the sea, and both the scenes are symbolic in their journey of reigning the city. The first instance comes when Bhiku is devastated from the fact that he is restrained from attacking Guru Narayan, because Bhau does not want any problems between the two, Bhiku is unable to come in terms with the fact that how the young members will look upon him, given that he has been asked to backdown, his ego is deeply hurt with this scenario. Satya catalyzes the initiation inside Bhiku’s mind that the kind of profession they are dealing under, the one who attacks first will have an upper hand over the situation and will have the last laugh. This is a pivotal moment in the film that changes the dynamics of the empire that Bhau has built over the years.     

The other major scene that deflects the change, or the alteration in both the characters is the one where Satya tells Bhiku that he wants to quit this profession, marry Vidya, and tell her his reality, the truth about the man she loves. Bhiku on the other hand, exclaims the iconic line “Mumbai ka king Kaun? Bhiku Mhatre” the situation in this scene is totally opposite of what we saw earlier, Satya have realized the outcomes under which he has to live his life in the world he deals in, Bhiku on the other hands is still feeling the magic of being the undisputed king of the city, it is when Satya explains him that he does not want to live in fear in front of Vidya, he is too tired by constantly hiding his real face in front of her, he has realized that the path of violence that he had taken will not lead them to a place where they can start their lives happily, Bhiku understands his point of view, one can see the expression on his face of his letting his friend go away to a safer place would have been a tough but a wise decision on his part, he then jokingly tells Satya, that he feels envious of Vidya, that’s such a beautiful moment in the film, where a dreaded gangster is far more concerned about the safety of his friend over the outcome in business after his departure.

In the film, the perspective of love is shown through two different lenses, Satya and Vidya discovers love for each other by spending quality time with each other, and through Bhiku and his wife, Pyari, who have spent more than a decade together, and have a love-hate relationship with each other in regards to the time they spent together. Pyari and Vidya are standing at two different directions which originates from a common path, Love.  One is trying to find more about the person she loves, while the other knows her partner so well, that she is saturated with the situation, and yet does not want to come out of that saturation.

The double date scene, where all four of them goes in an upper middle-class restaurant and share few moments of laughter is so well placed that it tells a lot about the two ladies in the frame. Bhiku tells them how they went to Jurassic Park last year on his wife’s birthday, and Pyari tries to clarify the name of the movie, and gets stuck in the pronunciation. She tells Vidya, that they do not go out too often, but she watches TV regularly, and enlists her favorite programs, MTV, Zee TV and The Bold and Beautiful. This aspect signifies the urbanization and invasion of pop culture that Mumbai was about to witness at its peak in the coming years. Bhiku interrupts the conversation and tells that she is lying, instead she mostly watches Marathi News, to which an angry Pyari replies that it mostly because of him, why? Because she fears his life, she knows he is a gangster, and she wants herself to be prepared to face the “Truth” that might knock their door any day.    

The scene when Bhiku goes back home late with Satya, and gets yelled at from his Wife for not telling him about his whereabouts makes another point of great discussion, there are three ways to look at that scene, first, that the role of gangster is similar to a corporate guy working nine to five job, once they go back home, they have to face similar questions, get involved in similar arguments and handle the situation somehow, this forms the spine of the story, because the writers and the director want us to have glimpse at the life of a gangster once he goes back home. The other aspect to look at this scene is through the eyes of Satya, he just stands there looking totally befuddled at the situation he has never thought someone has to face, The man who just minutes ago gave him a gun and asked him to do the work is now on the receiving end of constantly being yelled at. The third, and the most important is the longing between Bhiku and Pyari, that oozed sexual tension everywhere, she wants him desperately, and yet cannot control her anger on him for coming so late. Once, the door is closed, the games of powerful sexual energies between the two begins. This similar form of sexual intimacy was also evident in Ram Gopal Varma’s "Company" between Malik Bhai and Saroja, she knew what Malik’s business, and yet despite that she loved him for the person he was even after witnessing the dangers involved in his life.     

Vidya on the other hand have a similar nature like Satya, reserved in her own world and dreams. She makes Satya come out of his reserved nature and appreciate little joys of life. The fact that Vidya does not have a clue about the reality of Satya is what makes their relationship more vulnerable to emotional investment from the audience. Satya is first infatuated with Vidya begins when he hears her sing “Gila Gila Paani, Paani Surila Paani Paani”, She is a struggling singer enjoying the Mumbai Monsoon, Satya is smitten by that voice, by that trait of finding happiness in such small acts of life. Vidya makes him understand that this what life is all about.  

The film tries to go into the mindset of a gangster, and that too a complicated one like Satya. When he is handed a gun for the first time, he obviously gets anxious, and is told by Bhiku that he has to do work, now the background music plays a crucial role in that scene, as soon as Bhiku utter those words to Satya, we hear a crescendo of sound burst out, and once Satya kills Jagga, he comes back, looks at Bhiku and blush a bit, and it starts raining heavily. That’s one of the many scenes that has troubled me a lot, why does he blush? It was as if he had just lost his virginity, and was proud of himself, retrospectively speaking that is what happened actually, he had lost his virginity to the underworld, and was now a soul similar to the ones who had their hands stained with someone’s blood. The question is not why these people do what they, the point that the film makes is this how they do their work, and this is how they try and live their life outside their work, unaware that the work they do outside for a living will cross path with their internal life, and effect a lot of people whom they love. There are moments which one does not expect to originate in a gangster film, like the one where Kalu Mama tells Yeda, he should learn from Satya how to woo a girl, and if he continues to keep his face dumb in front of girls, there is no scope for him.     

Sandeep Chowta’s background score is the backbone of the film, whereas the soundtrack by a young Vishal Bhardwaj forms an important part of the narrative. The background score basically reflects the psyche of the character, and is as unpredictable as the mood of the Satya. There are sounds which defines the human relationship between the characters, the tragedy of their lives, the decisions they take in order to survive. At one moment, when Satya is trying to interact with Vidya, when he wishes her Happy Birthday, the sound is indicating something that was building up between the two of them, as soon as Vidya leaves, Satya turns around, and the sound quickly changes gear into a more intense version. The picture perfect Gulzar-esque lyrics, “Jo Tujhe Jaanta Na Ho Us-Se Tera Naam Poochna, Yeh Mujhe Kya Ho Gaya” perfectly sums up the relationship between the two, after all music become an important element in the film, because it’s the joy that Vidya gets out of music is what attracts Satya to her. The shift in the sound and rhythm is relentless in the movie, again parallelly narrating the mood of these people when they are gangsters and when they back to being common people. When Bhau enters Mama’s den, there is a powerful score to epitomize his aura and the power he holds in the city, and as soon they patch up, there is upsurge of delight all around, and in a matter of minutes, there is consistent laughter all around, random jokes being thrown, that was the beauty and the importance of the background score in the film. In the pre-climax of the film, when the crowd’s favorite, Bhiku Mhatre is killed unexpectedly, Mule’s rant to the lifeless body of Bhiku, we hear a melancholic theme of Satya, which establishes that the end will always be death, on the other side, when the truth about Satya is broken to Vidya, the horror on her face is further amplified by the background Score, I could never imagine Satya without its background score.  

         

Mumbai and its popular, notorious and larger than life figures have been a focal point of attraction for Hindi films for years, and as the organized crime reached its peak in the city, the figures from the real life were drawn as inspiration for reel characters. As the Hindi Cinema was witnessing the evolution of angry young man, the waves of a major revolution in Western Cinema in the form of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” reshaped the films based on the crime genre. It became a landmark film, and a reference point for the generations to come, however, I am not going to compare how Satya references The Godfather, because it does not. I only opened the topic of The Godfather because it is a reference film for gangster genre. The Godfather creates its own world around a particular family, and the trilogy encompasses the journey that Michael Corleone goes through from the point he decides to get into his family business. The mafia is revolved around a precised number of families, and no where we feel that it is going to create chaos in normal citizen’s life. The Godfather is a deeply personal story. Then, in the year 1990, Martin Scorsese adapted "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi, into “Goodfellas”, that turned the way how filmmakers tend to look at the gangster genre in films. Henry Hill spoke one the most unforgettable initial line ever in the history of cinema. Goodfellas felt more real, and violence was more in your face, it also portrayed that the world of crime deeply influences the society, overlooking the fact that a whether person is associated with the syndicate or not. Satya feels more relatable to Goodfellas because it deals with the effect that people associated with criminal faces regardless of their choice. 

Satya, without loosing its originality anywhere tends to reference some of the cult films made in India. In Mani Ratnam’s Tamil magnum opus “Nayakan”, there is a constant theme of catastrophe guided by the apparitions of prelapsarian innocence, the marital happiness, idealistic communitarianism which are short lived in their nature and sign destruction. The system is then challenged by an outsider, Velu Naicker who enhances a better life for a community. The anti-heroism opens up new notions of this feature, through morality, religion. Nayakan is the genesis of a young kid, Shaktivelu into a Mafia Don, Naicker Ayya. The cinematography by P.C. Sriram still feels so innovating, because it interlaced a man’s journey and maintaining the balance needed to tick the various points of the commercial aspects of popular Indian Cinema. Then, in the year 1989, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “Parinda” took realism in Hindi films to a greater level. The film was based on a simple idea that violence will eventually lead to more violence. Parinda captured the amalgamation of violence and conflict of morality rooted between Anna and Kishan. The lighting of the film is what made me notice more deeper motives used in the film, there was fire, darkness and that is what made the eeriness of the film much more real. Satya, at many points uses this method of lighting at odd angles, which tries to convey the dangerous psyche of gangsters.        

The film that I relate Satya to mostly is Govind Nihalani’s 1983 released “Ardh Satya” which translates into Half Truth. Broadly speaking, it was a story of a cop with his own sense of particular ideology battling against a cancerous cynical system. The screenplay of the film was written by Vijay Tendulkar. Ardh Satya delves into the psyche of a police inspector, who is mentally destroyed by his father and by the system he works in. The best part about Ardh Satya is that it did not have a hero, or a villain, it had characters which originated from the space of the reality.

A crucial part of Satya, is that apart from it being a story set on the backdrop of Mumbai, it is precisely set during the two most active periods of the year in Mumbai, Monsoons, and Ganesh Utsav. These two events reflect the never stopping or getting paused activity of the city. Satya is perhaps one of the few films that intelligently uses this milieu of the city as an out and out character to set the mood of the film. Two years prior to Satya, Sudhir Mishra’s “Is Raat Ki Subah Nahi” gave an impression of what a long never-ending night in Mumbai feels like. The film was stylish in its representation of the Mafia in Mumbai. In Parinda, Bombay is treated like a ghost town, simply because it existed like that. But by the time, Satya came, Bombay had changed into Mumbai, on the verge of becoming the financial metropolitan giant of the country.  

“Company” is technically a superior sequel to Satya, and I have this fan theory of why Company is indeed a sequel to Satya. The only member of Bhiku Mhatre gang to survive the encounter was Yeda (the one with long hairs and was subjected to constant taunts from other gang members for not able to find a woman for himself), and in Company, when Malik bhai and gang shift their base from Mumbai to Hong Kong, we see an urbanized, stylish version of Yeda. He arranges the accommodation for them. The work he does is similar in terms of its nature, however this gave me an idea that perhaps the guy we saw in Satya has changed and moved on life, only to operate at international level. Ram Gopal Varma in his book “Guns and Thighs” too answered this question about the constant comparisons between the two cult films in the genre, that Company is from the brain, whereas Satya is from the heart.

The climax of the film is tragic and poetic, Satya’s desire to see Vidya, and explain his side of the story remains unfulfilled and that’s the one side of the tragedy of this film, not merely Satya dying in front of her, but he does not get a single chance or enough time to elucidate why he became what he was. The other side of the tragedy that embodies through the climax is the decision that Satya takes to meet Vidya, one last time. Kalu Mama tells him that he has arranged for them to take a ship, and get out of Mumbai, but Satya’s relentless pursue of Vidya in the climax is soul shattering. One would certainly think that how does a man like Satya, who always puts logic ahead of profit take such a silly decision. Maybe the tragedy is the beauty of the film, and that is the reason, that even after 20 years of its release, people still talk about the film with so much interest. The one aspect, I thought a lot after watching both Satya and Company, is what happened to the women involved with these guys. We will never know how Vidya would be able to overcome the trauma of Satya and move on in her life. Pyari Mhatre, I suppose was a braver woman who would give her children eggs every Sunday, and make sure that they choose their paths carefully. Bhiku Mhatre reincarnated into Sardar Khan, nearly a decade and half later, who was more extreme in his nature in “Gangs of Wasseypur”, Anurag Kashyap went on to become the connoisseur of Mumbai, by adapting three of the best books written with Mumbai as the backdrop; Black Friday (S. Hussain Zaidi), Mumbai Fables (Gyan Prakash) and Sacred Games (Vikram Chandra).  

The legacy that Satya has attained over the last 20 years is unmatchable, often cited as the one of the most influential movies to come out of Indian cinema, and paving the way for realism in films. It is one of my all-time favorite film, because it opened up the power that the medium of Cinema holds and the diversity of emotions it can convey.