Ram-Leela – The Rampaging Review - The Inside Story.

Leela says: ‘Green hai angoor, kelay ka rang peela hai, kehdo saari duniya se, Ram ki Leela hai.’

So it’s a Love story. Bhansali says: Ram-Leela is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo-Juliet

Here’s what Shakespeare would say to that, perhaps:

“Raat ko peeta hu thandi-chilled beer, naam hai mera Will-i-Am Shakespeare

Teen Kingfisher may ho jata hu fully set; Bhansali thaari Ram-Leela ain’t no Romeo-Juliet.”

So what the hell is it if it isn’t inspired/based/copied/lifted from Romeo-Juliet.

Well, Ram-Leela took birth on 27^th Dec 2011. A drunk & depressed Bhansali (Saawariya & Guzarish flopped) knocked Anurag Kashyap’s door at well past midnight.

They aren’t buddies & Anurag wasn’t amused but let him in anyway. When Anurag returned from the kitchen with a coffee, Bhansali was missing. He found him passed out in the main bathroom. Anurag left him there & joined wife Kalki in the bedroom.

Bhansali woke with a start at 5:03am, cleaned himself up & chanced upon a bunch of stapled papers in the basket. 

In the next hour & a half he read it all. A thrilled Bhansali left without waking Anurag. Bhansali had found his next film.

Ram-Leela is the illegitimate love child of the ferocious love-making between his own Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam & Anurag’s violent Gangs of Wasseypur.

Ram-Leela is the story of Ram, who has slept with every girl in his Rajri community & Leela, who belongs to the rival clan Sanedas.  P.S. Leela claims to be a sati-savitri (hasn’t slept with anyone)

Ram runs a love-shop: A mini porn theatre & aims to sleep with everything that walks. The rest of his community sells guns & bullets & watches porn in their best clothes. Everyone in his land has a gun, kids & women included. Leela doesn’t do anything. Yes she does, she looks gorgeous.

On one of his lecherous outings Ram ends up on the wrong side of the road, in the land of the arch-enemies: The Sanedas. He instantaneously falls in love with Leela who kisses him on their first meeting.

Then starts the relentless pursuit of Leela. She leads him on. After touching & smooching each other lecherously at every opportunity they decide to live-happily-ever-after.

But it’s not to be. Clans clash, the simmering tension comes to a boil when Ram’s brother is shot death by-accident by Leela’s brother while playing the adorable game of shoot-the-beer-bottle-on-my-head. Ram shoots Leela’s brother dead in reflex.

There’s no way now they’ll be allowed to do the legendary saat-pheras with the famed aashirwaad of the family. They do the right thing: They elope.

Ram-Leela end up in the awesomest motel ever: ‘Chanda love lodge’ for their honeymoon.

But wait a minute says Leela & tricks Ram into marrying her first before the rangeen suhaag-raat. He does. But such is his terrible luck. His chaddi-buddies show up from home town right before the 3^rd base (real action). They take him away & get him wasted drunk. He passes out on the ghats of Ganga. They SMS Leela’s family from Ram’s cellphone & reveal her whereabouts.

Leela is force-lifted from the Chanda ‘love’ lodge & air-lifted back to home. More violence follows. Soon the violence breaches the nerve-wracking levels of Tarantino’s Kill Bill 1 & 2. Dead bodies & crimson blood fly everywhere. It is World War 3 between Rajris & Sanedas.

After almost everyone is dead, Ram-Leela come face-to-face, body-to-body. No, still no sight of the much-awaited suhaag-raat.

Ram says: Mene sabke li, bas jiski leni chahi ussi ki nahi mili. Leela responds: Mujhe toh kissi ki bhi nahi mili. {Loved it}

Then some complex logic leads them to shoot each other dead. They die stuck to each other. Leela dies a virgin. Ram who did everyone couldn’t do his wife.

Ram-Leela’s love story remains unfulfilled. Bhansali’s Ram-Leela is a gorgeous tragedy. Ram-Leela is so colorful that it makes the brightest rainbow seem Feeka. Even the million bullets don’t succeed in killing the soul of Ram-Leela.

Performances: Dipika (Leela) is delicious, spell-tacularly magical; Ranveer (Ram) is electric & epitomizes chichora-dom, Pathak (Baa) is chillingly haunting. Everyone else sparkles.

And Ram-Leela brings Bhansali back from the dead.

P.S. My favorite line from Ram-Leela: “Bada badtameez, besharam, khudgarz hota hai yeh pyaar………………………..par aisa hi hota hai pyaar”