There’s been a lot of noise around Rahasya, a film apparently “inspired” by the double murder of Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj in Noida in 2008. The noise has served its purpose. It’s created a buzz around the film, a connect even. But having watched the film, I’m not so sure about the alleged inspiration. Exploitation, yes. Blatant.
The news of 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar’s murder was received with shock the shock of a child being murdered in her own house while her parents slept in their bedroom. It just wasn't possible. It was unheard of. It would never happen in our home. So they were guilty. If for nothing else, then for letting that happen, for not protecting their child in her own house, in her own bedroom. It was unpardonable. They are culpable. The rest was just technicalities.
And then, as if to reinforce our hunch, Nupur Talwar, Aarushi's mother, appeared on national TV, all coherent and not distraught. That clinched it. We thought how we would have been, how our own mother would have reacted. Whatever we’d have been, we’d never have been like Nupur Talwar. So when the makers of Rahasya suggest that their film is "inspired" by the Aarushi case, we know that they are aware of our need, of our desperation to know the truth conclusively. They are aware that we take Aarushi’s murder very personally, and need to see it resolved, with a confession. So, in that sense, the hook works. The other thing that works in Rahasya’s favour is Kay Kay Menon. Despite his now rather predictable and mannered cop-giri, he sparks every once in a while and keeps us waiting for more showy and filmy thrills. Whenever they come, they delight.
Writer-director Manish Gupta’s Rahasya begins with the panchnama of the real-life crime a father sleeping in his bedroom, in the bedroom next door is his dead daughter, a maid, a missing servant and the stoic mother — but then takes off into the realm of fiction and myth-creation. The maid, Remi Fernandes (Ashwini Kalsekar), finds the body, cops arrive, check this and that, pick a hair and a pen, and arrest Dr Sachin Mahajan (Ashish Vidyarthi) for the murder of his daughter, Ayesha Mahajan (Sakshi Sem). Her mother, Dr Aarti Mahajan (Tisca Chopra), is distraught. The case is soon transferred on Aarti's request to the CBI. And the akhrot-chewing, middle class CBI officer Sunil Paraskar (Kay Kay Menon) is put in charge.
Family friend Brinda Chhabria (Mita Vasisht) thinks Sachin is innocent and engages a hot-shot lawyer. But the film’s attention now is totally on Sunil Parashkar.
Bit by bit, his character is created and revealed to us. Honest, diligent and, well, not paid enough, he is our hero. He will make sure that this murder case, knotted up in many motives and many more lies, gets resolved.
The film mentions a pregnancy, a boyfriend, but mostly steers clear of Ayesha. It creates, instead, several circles of intrigue for Paraskar to unravel. The film often hints at what it's planning to do, against whom it's going to turn. Only it takes a loopy route to that conclusion. It adds a love angle, a triangle, an absconding lover, piles up many dead bodies, making the plot diabolic and unbelievable.
The film keeps us hooked, but it also irritates. It doesn’t deliver exactly what it promised to, but it does give us the confession we need to hear.
Manish Gupta, whose first film, The Stoneman Murders, was also based on a real-life criminal case, perhaps twisted facts because his film doesn’t have the blessings of the Talwars, unlike Meghna Gulzar’s forthcoming film.
So, instead of Noida, his film is set in a posh apartment in a multi-storied building in Mumbai. That takes away the edge of UP politics which the Aarushi case had in the beginning.
And the doctor parents here are orthopaedic surgeons and that fact is important to the story Gupta tells. Gupta hasn't done much thinking, or research. He doesn't know more than you and I. That's why his Rahasya very decisively rests its faith in a CBI officer's investigative skills and dogged pursuit of truth. I’ve covered the crime beat for too long to accept any police investigation without question. Not even when it, deviously, proves our hunch right.
