Two humans in one. A man soft and sentimental about family and nation. The other, a revenge-killer driven by a disturbing ferocity. What was on screen as Jaskirat and Hamza, two faces of the same man playing a double role, used to be noted in Ranveer Singh when the cameras were switched off too. On the one hand, there was the enthusiastically flamboyant actor who kept fans and the media amused with what he’d turn up wearing today. The clown couture — topped with a no-couture moment when he posed in his birthday suit a few years ago — was so strongly associated with flippancy that it overshadowed the committed professional that is an equal part of him. Until Ranveer acknowledged the misstep and retired the circus performer in him.
When he turned sober with his attire and got himself a natty set of formals, it was like stepping out of rehab as a changed man. But the transformation was only for the public. Insiders who knew Ranveer beyond his high-energy showiness always took him seriously. They included filmmakers like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who repeatedly cast him and kept testing his versatility after working with him in Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013). Bhansali turned him into a cultured Peshwa ruler in Bajirao Mastani (2015) and the maniacally beastly Alauddin Khilji of Padmaavat (2018). Likewise, Kabir Khan got an introduction to Ranveer’s professional focus with 83 (2021), where Bajirao-Khilji was reset as the Haryanvi Kapil Dev, every word, every field action a match with India’s match-winning captain.
By pushing sartorial flamboyance into the past and calibrating his interaction with the audience, the actor and his work finally stand undistracted on stage today. Ranveer goes off the radar when immersed in a film, he becomes Jaskirat/Hamza/whoever for as long as it takes the filmmaker and emerges only with a finished product.
The blockbuster success of Dhurandhar is Ranveer’s well-earned bonus for 15 years of tunnel-vision work. It’s only his work that’s getting this crazy, unswerving attention; there hasn’t been a peep out of Ranveer the off-screen person.
However, is an exultant Right wing partying without a cause? Celebrating filmmaker Aditya Dhar’s nationalism and belief in Naya Bharat may be justified. But does anybody know which way Ranveer Singh, the registered citizen-voter, is politically inclined? Was the expounder of New India merely executing an acting assignment with trademark sincerity or was he a patriot airing his personal politics? Ranveer has been unlike say, R. Madhavan, whose leanings have been visible ever since he told the story of Nambi Narayan in Rocketry: The Nambi Effect (2022). Maddy didn’t hold back when Dhurandhar turned controversial; it was plain-speak when Maddy told critics to keep their politics out of their reviews. Has Ranveer ever called out anyone over Dhurandhar? Do remember. An actor’s performance is not always the same as his personal belief. After all, Ranveer has also played Khilji, who tormented a Rajput queen with equal savagery and was the 180-degree opposite of all that Jaskirat stood for.
The Right wing has been grumbling that wife Deepika hasn’t voiced any support for Dhurandhar. Has Ranveer spoken?
By appropriating Ranveer as one of their own and pitching him as victorious over the Khans that has a gleeful We vs Them angle, an ideological section has been blindly betting on him without knowing which side of the fence he sits on. An undebatable fact is, if it comes to Dhurandhar vs Pathaan, Deepika and her bikini were on the YRF-SRK side while a diplomatic Ranveer is friendly with all of them, the Khans included.
But the SRK side has also contributed to fanning stories of a standoff between Khan and Ranveer with consistently childish Instagram posts after Dhurandhar in December and after its sequel in March. For instance, when the trailer of Ranveer’s film had the tagline, “You’re still not ready for this”, SRK’s Red Chillies posted, “We’re always ready for this”, exactly one day before the sequel was released. Thirty-four years after he rode a motorbike to superstardom in the Rishi Kapoor film Deewana, graciousness is expected from a seasoned SRK and not this level of insecurity.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author