Hindi
Aakrosh: Subject fails to evoke empathy
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| Director: Priyadarshan Producer: Kumar Mangat Pathak Cast: Ajay Devgn, Akshay Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Reema Sen, Bipasha Basu, Amita Tripathi |
MUMBAI: While almost every film is being copied from a foreign source, some makers get gutsier and copy classics. The recent hit Raajneeti copied all that was best out of Godfather, while Aakrosh is a straight lift from 1988 Hollywood classic Mississippi Burning. While the latter dealt with a sensitive 1960 subject of Blacks Vs Ku Klux Klan, Aakrosh, set in a small Bihar town, deals with Upper cast Vs Backward class.
The story follows similar lines as Mississippi Burning, directed by Alan Parker, not risking diverging one bit except giving it a Hindu fanatic touch. A lower cast boy studying medicine in Delhi arrives with his two friends in his home town, Jhanjhar, after receiving an SOS from his high cast girl friend that her marriage is being fixed with a rich boy. While trying to elope with the girl, the boys vanish and are not heard of again.
Soon, two CBI officers with opposing style of working descend on the town to
investigate the disappearance of the boys! Nobody is willing to talk, no witnesses; the backward class are too scared and the high cast are in a league. And, the local police on its part feign total ignorance of any happenings around town!
While the original had Ku Klux Klan, Aakrosh has a Shool Sena, a Trishul burning brigade with the singular agenda to kill low cast folk, especially those aspiring to match their status. The subject fails to evoke any empathy because, while equal rights for black was a burning issue in the US and had its strong advocates, suppression of low cast is as much a political issue here as it is a social one. The writers have found the original sequences so easy and convenient to retain (except the one about chilly powder, lifted straight out of Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala), they have not bothered if they fit the local way of life.
There is nothing much to say about performances as Ajay Devgn has to vary between angry and suspicious look through the film, while Akshaye Khanna wears a quizzical one. The villains of the lot have a better scope to express among whom Paresh Rawal excels. Reema Sen is good while Bipasha Basu and Amita Pathak have little to do.
The cast of supporting goons is effective. As for direction, the credit should go to Alan Parker for whatever is good in the film. Music is poor. Dialogue is good at places.
Issue-based films have few takers in India and Aakrosh is as dry an entertainer as it can get to score at the box office.
Knock Out is a taut film
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| Director: Mani Shankar Producer: Sohail Maklai Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Irrfan, Kangna Ranaut, Sushant Singh, Gulshan Grover, Apporva Lakhia |
Knock Out is a rehash of Hollywood film Phone Booth with a dash of another film, Liberty Stands Tall added. Since it is a single thread, one location film, the trick to hold the viewers interest is in unfolding the story while holding as much back to maintain an air of suspense and drama. As is his wont, director Mani Shankar employs gadgets of all sorts from satellite tracing to laser guns to miniature surveillance choppers.
Irrfan is a fixer for a particular politician handling his ill-gotten cash and running errands. Contrary to his image of a family loving husband, he is a compulsive womaniser and liar. Being in the kind of business he is, he takes his instructions from the politician’s people from a public phone booth. On one such visit to his regular phone booth, he picks up the ringing phone and, thereafter, the drama unfolds as he is held captive in the booth at gun pointed at him from a building across the booth and made to own up to all his sins as well as those of his mentors as the media is thronging the place covering this drama as it unfolds.
With little else to distract or divert viewers’ attention to, a lot depends on how the film unwinds and the performances. While Sanjay Dutt, closeted in a room pointing a gun at the booth and eliciting confessions, can’t do much to liven up the proceedings, it is up to Irrfan to make the goings on interesting; to say the least, he does it with flying colours as this role showcases his talents. Kangna Ranaut as a TV journalist passes muster. Sushant Singh is effective. Gulshan Grover and Apoorva Lakhia in brief roles are okay.
Direction is stylish. There are no songs in the film; background score is effective. Cinematography is very good and so are action sequences. Dialogue is witty.
Knock Out is a taut film with loose first half and interesting second half. Its drawbacks are in the waning following of Sanjay Dutt and release during a very dull period which will not augur well for its business prospects.
In a music industry that often rewards speed, spectacle, and instant recall, Navjot Ahuja’s journey feels refreshingly different. His story is not built on noise. It is built on patience, discipline, emotional honesty, and a quiet commitment to becoming better with every passing year. After 14 years of struggle, learning, performing, and writing, Navjot stands today as an artist whose success has not changed his centre. If anything, it has only made his purpose clearer.
For Navjot, music has never been about chasing fame alone. It has always been about expression. It is about writing more truthfully, singing more skillfully, understanding himself more deeply, and becoming a kinder human being in the process. That rare clarity is what gives his journey its beauty.
Where It All Began: A Writer Before a Singer
Indian singer and songwriter Navjot Ahuja’s musical journey began in the most familiar of places: school assemblies. But even then, what was growing inside him was not only the desire to sing. It was the need to write.
Long before he saw himself as a performer, he had already discovered the emotional release that writing offered him. For Navjot, words became the first true channel for feeling. Songwriting came before singing because writing was the only way he could let emotions flow through him fully. That inner pull shaped his artistic identity early on.
Like many young musicians, he sharpened his craft by creating renditions of popular songs.
Those experiments became his training ground. But the turning point came in 2012, when he wrote his first original song. That moment did not just mark the beginning of songwriting. It marked the beginning of self-definition.
A Calling He Did Not Chase, But Accepted
What makes the latest Indian singer-songwriter Navjot’s story especially compelling is the way he describes his relationship with music. He does not frame it as a career he aggressively pursued. In his own understanding, music was not something he chose. It was something that chose him.
There was a time when he imagined a very different future for himself. He wanted to become a successful engineer, like many young people shaped by ambition and conventional expectations. But life had a different script waiting for him. During his college years, around 2021, music entered his life professionally and began taking a firmer shape.
That shift was not driven by image-building or industry ambition. It came from acceptance. Navjot embraced the fact that music had claimed him in a way no other path could. That sense of surrender continues to define the artist he is today.
An Artist Guided by Instinct, Not Influence
Unlike many singers who speak openly about idols, icons, and musical role models, Navjot’s creative world is built differently. He does not believe his music comes from imitation or inherited influence. He listens inward.
He has never considered himself shaped by ideals in the traditional sense. In fact, he admits that he does not particularly enjoy listening to songs, especially his own. His decisions as a songwriter and singer come from instinct. He writes what feels right. He trusts what his inner voice tells him. He positions his music according to what he honestly believes in, not what trends demand.
That creative independence gives his work a distinct emotional sincerity. His songs do not feel calculated. They feel alive.
The Long Years of Invisible Struggle
Every artist carries a chapter of struggle, and Navjot’s was long, demanding, and deeply formative. One of the biggest challenges he faced was building continuity as the best new indian singer songwriter in an era where musical collaboration is increasingly fluid.
For emerging singers, especially those trying to build with a band, consistency can be difficult. Instrumentalists today have more opportunities than ever to freelance and perform with multiple artists. While that growth is positive and well deserved, it can make things harder for singers who are still trying to establish a steady team and sound around their work.
For Navjot, one of the most difficult phases came during 2021 and 2022, when he was doing club shows almost every day. It was a period of relentless performance, but not always personal fulfillment. He was largely singing covers because clubs were not open to original songs that audiences did not yet know.
For a new Indian singer and songwriter, that can be a painful compromise. To perform constantly and still not have the freedom to share your own voice requires not just resilience, but restraint.
“Khat” and the Grace of Staying Unchanged
After 14 years of effort, Navjot’s new love song Khat became a defining milestone. Professionally, he acknowledges that the song changed how society viewed him as a musician. It strengthened his place in the public eye and altered his standing in meaningful ways.
Yet personally, he remains unchanged.
That is perhaps the most striking part of his story. Navjot says his routine is still the same. His calm is still the same. His writing process is still the same. He does not want success or failure to interfere with the purity of his art. For him, emotional detachment from public outcomes is essential because the moment an artist becomes too attached to validation, the writing begins to shift.
His joy comes not from numbers, but from the attempt. If he has tried to improve his skill today, if he has written his heart out more honestly than before, then he is at peace.
Growth, Not Glory, Remains the Real Goal
Even now, Navjot is not consumed by labels such as singles artist, performer, or digital success story. His focus remains deeply personal. He wants to sing better. He wants to play instruments better. He wants to understand himself more. And he wants to become a kinder person.
That is what makes Navjot Ahuja’s journey so moving. It is not simply the story of a musician finding recognition. It is the story of an artist who continues to grow inward, even as the world begins to look outward at him. In an age obsessed with applause, Navjot reminds us that the most meaningful success often begins in silence, honesty, and the courage to remain true to oneself.
