Ashutosh Rana: Raaz, which was released in 2002, had a profound impact on us. Look at that time I was 10-11 years old. Therefore, I was too young to watch Bipasha Basu and Malini Sharma. Even today, I am not old enough to understand Dinu Moriya’s acting. Therefore, the character I found most interesting in Raaz was the mysterious character of Professor Agnihotri.
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My Experience with Ashutosh Rana
But there was a twist in this too that I could not watch the film in the theater, so we waited for the satellite stream and when the film came on TV after 6 months, the picture tube of the TV (mythological gadget for GenZ) was so damaged that it had no color. Thus, it was not properly visible.
I am making special mention of colors here because in an important scene of the film, it is shown that Professor Agnihotri throws a lemon in the house by chanting a mantra to catch that “evil spirit” and when he picks the lemon back, it goes red.
But unfortunately, I watched the lemon turning from gray to dark gray and I was tempted to see a red lemon.
Sadly, in those days, my mother brought 1 kg of lemons from the Sunday Market to make pickles, but due to her busy schedule, she could not even see them for a week or ten days and when Little Siddharth saw those 10 days old lemons, it shattered him.
About 10-20 lemons had turned from yellow to red. I felt that the secret lady had now come to our kitchen.
Ashutosh Rana as Gokul Pandit
Years after this incident, I witness Gokul Pandit of Dushman and Lajja Shankar of the movie Sangharsh. By then the understanding of cinema had become better than in 2002. This better understanding revealed what real acting is in phony cinema. Then I realized why Ashutosh Rana’s characters appear so distinct and convincing.
I had seen ‘Silence of the Lambs’ before Sangharsh; thus I can definitely state that Lajja Shankar was the only reason Sangharsh was not labeled as a complete copy of Hollywood.
Following this, we 90s folks saw films like Badal, Ghulam, Raaz, Kasoor, Haasil, L-O-C Kargil, Kalyug, and others on narrow waist TVs so many times that we developed a one-sided cinematic romance with Ashutosh Rana.
However, after 2010-11, when I distanced myself from my street friends and started writing film reviews and articles, Rana Ji’s films stopped being visible. Who knows what happened that he started disappearing from mainstream cinema.
Years after Ashutosh Rana in Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania
In 2014, Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania was released. But I had suffered through Student of the Year, so I could not muster the courage to watch Varun again. (Although eventually it proved to be a big mistake)
Years later, one of his short films – Test Drive – allowed me to be impressed by Rana Ji again. The story of this film was average but Rana Ji…The looks were amazing and I was fans of the acting since childhood.
Only after this, I watched Humpty Sharma and Sonchiriya.
Cut to: Last week, Rana Ji came to the show Lallantop’s Guest in the Newsroom. This show broke all records and was more than 3 hours long.
The interesting thing is that I watched this show non-stop from 1 am to 4 am and realized that I did not even know Ashutosh Rana till now.
In complete contrast to his movies, the face of Rana ji’s spirituality and devotion to Guru came forward which mesmerized my mind.
I was introduced to his sense of humour in “Maun Muskaan Ki Maar,” but seeing his steadfastness in nature, confidence, and optimistic approach towards life, I realized that this actor had so much more to offer the movie, but owing to the same screenplay, we could only explore a small portion of it.
However, for you, which is that film of Rana ji which you can watch again and again?
