Manhood Is At The Center Of Prime Series Raakh

At its surface, Raakh is a procedural drama that is a fictionalised retelling of the infamous 1978 Ranga-Billa case, opening with the disappearance of Sahil and Suman Arora- a brother-sister duo who go missing on their way to the All India Radio office in New Delhi.

The 8-episodic series starring Ali Fazal, Sonali Bendre, Aamir Bashir spotlights on the police and city administration's efforts to solve murder case. But to see the series simply as a crime drama is to miss what it really is asking its audience: what does it mean to be a man in India and what happens when that meaning is stripped away from him.

Ali Fazal plays SI Jayprakash, son of a retired constable in the same department, who is tasked with investigating the murder, while grief-stricken parents are played by Lt. Col. Ashok Arora( Bashir) and Mona Arora (Bendre). While cast of the Prime Videos series is committed to the assigned performances, occasionally the editing lets down the parents during some of their deeply emotionally scenes as they are abruptly cut of out the frame. It does not return what Bendre poignantly puts in.

The series doesn't keep the mystery as to who brutally killed the two children in the backseat of a car. The show answers that early. It is Rajjo and Babu. But it keeps returning the question around violence and its ties with fractured masculinity. Violence is tied to men and their humiliations, the state-afflicted violence and peer pressure to act manly.

The show's subtle brilliance reflects it's depiction of violence as a desperate attempt to restore the brutally damaged sense of self and a way to regain control over the feeling of powerlessness.

Sanjay Gandhi's forced sterilisation campaign during the Emergency was one of independent India's most invasive acts of state violence against post-Independence masculinity. Rajjo's "lack of manliness" as Babu describes it comes from his shame attached to his vasectomy. Time and again, Babu uses it to coerce Rajjo to commit crimes so he can ultimately become a man. By associating the wound with Rajjo's character, the series refuses the easy comfort of making him simply monstrous. The man repeatedly questions things before being peer-pressured to commit it. Whether it is robbing someone, kidnapping a child, or murdering the Arora siblings.

Moreover, even his brother-in-law turns it into a constant reminder of his perceived failure as a man. Rajjo absorbs it all until his insecurities become a fuel for violence and domination instigated by Babu.

But in no way is it a justification for his actions. The show walks a difficult line here. Rajjo's past helps explain the shape of his rage, but it cannot explain away what he becomes. Both, Babu and Rajjo are not only violent towards the opposite gender but also men. The treatment of Pyare Mohan, the cross-dressing club performer and Rajjo's childhood friend becomes a disposable asset for the two to get their means. They first kill a man to "protect" Pyare and later force him to return the favour by killing a woman they randomly find in the garden.

Raakh effectively presents the corrosive power of toxic masculinity and how it punishes those who fall outside its norms. The only relief from the brutality of toxic masculinity in the show is through the relationship between Jayprakash and his father Ghanshyam, who belong to lower caste in Indian caste system. Through their tense but caring dynamics, the series spotlights how social battles can be approached without weaponising violence to create a respectable place for oneself in society. Jayprakash uses his ambition and discipline to break the socially-defined professional limitations for himself whereas, his father does it by bringing tiffin for everyone in the department post retirement.

While the series puts the lens on toxic masculinity and the system that fuels it, it drags out the chase and moral dilemma of the characters excessively. It works counterintuitively, as it tends to overexplain itself. What redeems Raakh from becoming another crime drama is its critique of who gets to be called a man and what does being one really means.