One of the strangest questions that I was ever asked during my crime reporting days was whether crime reporting is “easy”. I found it strange because something like that is not supposed to be easy.
A journalist who steps into a beat like crime must step into the lowest, dirtiest muck of human nature. They must look at the worst of deeds that a human being is capable of, and then probe further into them. And I don’t mean ‘probe’ in the investigative sense, where, as popular culture will have you believe, a journalist is a far better investigator than the best of cops. They’re not. But getting the entire story requires probing of a different kind, where you ask questions, visit locations and assimilate enough information to be able to accurately present a picture of how ugly a human mind has the capacity to be. By definition, this is supposed to be among the hardest jobs ever. It would actually be quite weird if it was easy.
Raakh looks at the brutal murders of the Chopra siblings (Geeta, 16, and Sanjay, 14) in the same manner. Everything that happens in the story is portrayed exactly it is. The horrific nature of their abuse and killing isn’t diluted. The unadulterated grief of the children’s parents isn’t altered for ‘aesthetics’ (Sonali Bendre and Aamir Bashir, take a bow). And the sheer hatefulness of the villains Rajjo and Babu isn’t whitewashed.
I think that last part is the true strength of Raakh. For years, we’ve been fed role models dressed up as villains. They are cool, smooth, suave, rich, attractive, stylish and pretty much everything that a common person would want to be. They overshadow the hero, who is always poor, struggling, down on his luck and depressed. The beating they get in the last ten minutes of the story pales in comparison to how much of life they enjoy in the rest of it.
In Raakh, you start disliking Babu and Rajjo the moment you lay your eyes on them, and this, I suspect, is fully on purpose. They are robbers, abusers and murderers, and that is exactly how Raakh portrays them. Even when the story takes us into their histories, we don’t feel a tinge of sympathy for them. This is a masterful achievement on part of creators and writers Sandeep Saket and Anusha Nandkumar; that we, as the viewers, are able to differentiate quite clearly between circumstances and conscious choices on part of the two villains.
Sandeep and Anusha are good friends of mine. No, this isn’t a paid review. If it were, you’d know just by reading it. The point is that I’ve had the pleasure of tracing their journey, from Indian Police Force to Singham Again to Raakh, as well as read their book, The War That Made Raw (Westland, 2021). As is abundantly clear, they’re enamoured by crime and policing, with a side of espionage thrown in. But the fact that they can successfully pull off so many different approaches to the same subject is the biggest testament to their skills.
Moving on, what’s true for how much you’d hate Babu and Rajjo is also true for how much your heart will break for each of their victims. Suman and Sahil are just entry points into the feral nature of the two men we follow through the story. The demonic duo leave a string of victims in their wake and each of them is, as so many people are saying, difficult to watch. Again, this is commendable because it is so, so easy to veer over to the dark side, and make such scenes titillating “for commercial reasons.” Raakh refuses to do that, steadfastly.
The same stands true for the investigation part. Ali Fazal as the young and idealistic sub inspector takes us through the rabbithole of the case using a variety of lenses. The forensics part works best, because a skeptical policeman reluctantly turning to a just-established Forensic department adds a wonderful layer to the story. A small aside on the execution here; when Fazal enters the building, a worker is painting the fourth letter of the name of the building. It’s a wonderful way of setting up just how nascent Forensics is in the universe that the story is set in. At the same time, the fact that it is 1978 isn’t the central theme of the story. The case happened in that year. The story unfolds in that year. After the first couple of episodes, you just get used to the cops not having mobile phones to coordinate with each other. It is this easy, smooth storytelling that is one of the strengths of Raakh.
The other thing I noticed about Raakh is that it comes with many, many small messages wrapped inside the larger package. It touches upon child abuse, law enforcement, office politics, journalism, mental health, domestic violence, same-sex romance and the difficult dynamics of a father-son relationship. Raakh does not dwell longer than necessary on any of these. Neither does it dismiss any of them either. It acknowledges their existence and gives each one the space it deserves. Nowhere will you find any of these aspects struggling or scuffling for more screen-space out of natural order.
I loved Raakh primarily because it takes a stark look at a crime as heinous as the abuse and murder of children, and what it does to the entire ecosystem around it. And it does so without screaming from the rooftops. Because certain stories do not need to be told loudly. In fact, loudness can be a disservice to them, while restraint becomes a form of respect. And that is exactly what Raakh achieves.
Also, I loved that they didn’t try to whitewash Rajjo and Babu even through their history. They showed them raw and inherently evil.
Most of the criminal series try to leave a sympathetic part for every criminal but Raakh didn’t which makes it more real.
This was a great review. Thank you for covering it.