Roja, Laine Bulakites

Laine Bulakites
HIND 2440
March 15^th, 2010

Roja Film Review 

      The nationalistic love story, Roja, inspired pride in many Hindi Indians. From the beginning to the end, there is no doubt that this movie would cause proud shouts from the audience, especially after the destruction of the Babri Masjid a few weeks prior. There are many examples of this – from the movie claiming that Kashmir is in India, to the extinguishing of India’s flag. However, Roja is different from other Hindi films I have seen in the sense that there isn’t a whole lot going on – the plot is very linear, while most typical Bollywood films are a mix of many genres.
      Roja is a film mainly about Rishi Kumar, a computer programmer who comes to a small village in hopes of marrying Roja’s sister. Because Roja’s sister does not want to marry Rishi, he opts to marry Roja instead. Though they originally don’t quite get along, Roja ends up falling for Rishi. When Rishi’s superior falls ill, he is sent to Kashmir in order to decode a message. Roja accompanies him, and in the beautiful setting of Kashmir, they have their honeymoon.
      During their stay in Kashmir, Rishi gets kidnapped and held hostage by a Kashmiri terrorist group led by Liaqat Khan. The terrorists offer the government the release of Rishi in exchange for the release of Wasim Khan, a jailed terrorist who has killed many people. The plot of the movie revolves around Rishi’s imprisonment and Roja’s struggle to get Rishi home safely.
      The soundtrack of Roja is one of the best I’ve heard. All of the songs were extremely catchy and easy to get stuck in your head, especially “Roja Janemaan” and “Rukmani”. While the songs in this movie don’t really add that much to the movie, a lot of them displayed beautiful settings and inspired the audience to long for Kashmir. “Rukmani,” while very sexual and frank, was also a very beautiful song about arguably the biggest night/event in one’s life.
      One of the things I noticed throughout the movie was the contrast between Roja and Rishi’s personalities. Rishi was the example of a “perfect” citizen – he makes self-sacrifices and he serves, loves, and is loyal his country. Rishi is the ‘modern’ nationalist; he wears Western clothes, and is generally more modern/Western in many ways, yet he is the embodiment of the extreme nationalist – for example, he goes out of his way and risks his life to save a burning Indian flag, and would rather sacrifice himself than let Wasim Khan out of jail. Rishi is not seen as a superhuman hero like we have seen in Hindi films in the past, instead he is seen as realistic. Hindu males watching the film see Rishi as who they are, not who they want to be.
      Roja, however, is a selfish, almost negative character. She doesn’t seem to care much about the nation – Roja just wants her husband back. She is belittled quite frankly in the movie: when the government decides to release Wasim Khan in exchange for Rishi, Colonel Royappa comes to her and sarcastically talks about how “happy” this makes him. He speaks of the countless soldiers who lost their lives to catch Wasim Khan and how their death will now be in vain for the sake of one man. Roja, of course, basically ignores this.
      Though there is a love story in this movie, it is safe to say that the love story between Rishi and Roja is secondary theme to the love story between Rishi and his nation, and the idea of tradition and modernity. Rishi is more modern than we have seen in other movies – in fact, the only times we see him in traditional clothing is on his wedding day and in the montage during the song “Roja Janemaan”. Modernity – or the new middle class – becomes the acceptable norm. Even Roja, who is described as the typical Indian village belle, is breaching the modern era: she knows how to work a telephone, she has a TV in her house, she calls her father “Daddy”, and she feels at home in Rishi’s city house.
      All in all, I enjoyed the film Roja. I thought the imagery and aesthetics were beautiful, and I thought that the love story between Roja and Rishi was very adorable. However, the movie was extremely biased and prejudiced, which made me uncomfortable at times, and I’m sure made many of it’s viewers uncomfortable too. Roja would be a much better movie if it looked at both sides of the story, instead of just leaning in India’s direction.