Spoilers ahead.
Sometimes, a film finds meaning outside its text; sometimes, a film struggles to portray internal narrative tension with elegance and gravitas. If one comes across a film that is a combination of the two, it is likely that the spectator becomes restless, at times uninterested. However, the technique of interpretation that relies on unpacking onscreen images and the offscreen conditions that produce them is helpful in such a case and can help us become slightly better at spectating. Ulajh is a film that belongs in this category.
Ulajh and the question of nepotism
Ulajh addresses the question of nepotism overtly. The trailer itself, for those who have not seen the film, lays out the charge on Suhana Bhatia (Janhvi Kapoor), who people in the system believe has been promoted to a high-ranking post in the High Commission of India in Britain because of her surname, the legacy of her father and grandfather. Early into the film, she responds to this denunciation by claiming that no matter how people think she has got this position, she will prove herself to be worthy. Kapoor’s recent interviews in media echo this sentiment.
It is worth noting that the Bhatia diplomatic legacy in Ulajh remains vague; one feels little to nothing about their generational patriotism or nationalism because the image is not interested in establishing any neat or complex ties of such kind, leaving the spectator speculating from where the film derives its force of the surname/legacy?
One could associate it with caste power relations embedded in our society as a factor, but here the significance lies not in the ‘Bhatia’ rather in ‘Kapoor’. Ulajh punctures this question of belonging via kinship ties into the subtext of its narrative, sometimes as a background noise that leaks and at other times as a bluntly delivered dialogue.
Is a woman government officer’s sexuality cataclysmic?
As Suhana navigates a world of assassins, geo-political trade, surveillance, and corrupt and dangerous officials in Ulajh, she gets entangled in an unfamiliar and seedy world of secret service. It all begins with the threat of an illicit sex tape being leaked by [alias] Nakul (Gulshan Devaiah) into the public domain and ruining the reputation of her family.
On a latent note, it is rare to see an image of a woman government officer exploring her sexuality in popular Hindi cinema; this figure has largely been placed indeterminately with respect to sexuality. Her physiognomy is either coded in masculine terms or finds sustenance in an androgynous avatar. One wonders if the conflict and violence in Ulajh emerge from the traditional-patriarchal force of punishing women for their perceived sexual transgression. Yet this reading finds no corroboration in the text.
One wonders if the conflict and violence in Ulajh emerge from the traditional-patriarchal force of punishing women for their perceived sexual transgression.
Ulajh’s interest is not to hold Suhana in contempt of society’s orthodox ethical standards; it neither casts any doubt on Suhana nor exposes her to any moral scrutiny. In fact, its interest seems peculiarly industrial.
Visuals create a sadomasochistic space for spectators
Once she realises, she is nothing but a sacrificial lamb in the larger plan of assassinating the Pakistani Prime Minister, she locates the vantage point from where Nakul, the sniper, is likely to shoot the PM and maddeningly sprints to stop him. She charges into the building and a physical altercation ensues between them. This is a visually charged scene where Suhana is violently attacked. As she is punched in the stomach and repeatedly shoved, a battered and bruised Janhvi Kapoor takes over the screen in an extreme close-up, aching, throbbing, in agony.
One forgets for a moment it is Suhana; the image the spectator witnesses at this point conflates with that of Kapoor, and one cannot but pity her, feel for her, and sigh when she ultimately slits Nakul’s throat.
But the fight scene in Ulajh manufactures a paradoxical space for a spectator who finds oneself resisting the feudal family structures that inform the ethos of the film industry. Such a spectator confronts injuries inflicted upon Kapoor’s character and is trapped in a sadomasochistic space that this scene opens up, where one simultaneously relishes the strikes against nepotism as well as admonishes oneself for taking an obscene pleasure in her pain. It is Ulajh‘s overwhelming consumption of sadism in favour of masochism – insofar as the spectator has no choice but to take Suhana/Kapoor’s side – that is revelatory.
In perspective: the personal or the national at stake in Ulajh?
Let’s consider a scene shortly before this one. Sebin (Roshan Mathew), Suhana’s colleague and a RAW agent, has difficulty accepting her deduction that Nakul’s aim is to kill the PM right under her nose, leaving her clues of the entire plan/strategy in order to finally humiliate her as the one incapable of connecting the dots. The spectator aligns with Sebin’s reasoning. He seems right in arguing that she is perhaps making a mistake thinking something larger than her (a geo-political matter of defence and military coup) is, in reality, a private game of winning and losing.
He seems right in arguing that she is perhaps making a mistake thinking something larger than her (a geo-political matter of defence and military coup) is, in reality, a private game of winning and losing.
She vehemently defends her theory, says that her identity has been erased and her choices have been slighted, she has been made to operate invisibly and immorally, and exclaims that the entire plot carries a deeply personal charge. Now, Ulajh could have been a film where the assassin and the diplomat were caught in a cat and mouse chase, but it is not; Suhana wields power fleetingly in the end. Her position as the scapegoat falters little over the course of the film. She remains stuck rather than actively planning a counterattack, she is invested in saving herself rather than capturing Nakul. Until, of course, the end.
In such a scenario, the idea that it is a personal matter seems textually unverifiable unless Ulajh finds coherence on an extra-cinematic level. The statement uttered by Sebin – that that her privilege cannot expunge her victimisation – is telling. It is indeed a complicated thought, that pure categories of victim and perpetrator do not exist. It is worth exploring how one can twist these neat categories. Though, in Ulajh, the ideological underbelly seems lopsided from the outset; invested in what can be understood as washing the stains of nepotism from the stardom of Janhvi Kapoor.
