Vikram Vedha: A movie with an unconventional take on morality

It has been a while since I posted something... Deserted by the Muses, I waited for a spark that would set aflame the desire to ramble. And then, I watched Vikram Vedha. Watching a movie is an experience that never fails to set me thinking. It is not everyday you witness the paths of an antagonist (debatable) who walks a tightrope between dharma and adharma, and a cop who spends sleepless nights manoeuvring to catch the former alive cross, only to pose the greatest existential question: what is dharma/adharma? The tension in the movie escalates when you see that the cop, Vikram is lured into the entrails of a moral mess by the Betal, Vedha; and then you are even more intrigued by the readiness Vikram exhibits in letting himself be controlled by Vedha (which I find quite natural for the person he is). 

I have always found the duality of dharma and adharma riveting. The Mahabharata, the greatest of epics, also exhausts this question to an extent that the line dividing the two blurs gradually. The director duo, Pushkar-Gayathri astutely point out the aforementioned blurring of the line; only here you find a real line with Vikram and Vedha on either side. What appears white and black turns grey (if only the duality of good and evil, or right and wrong were discernible, which in most cases is difficult, the world would be a much peaceful place to live). The peaceful world of Vikram is disrupted by questions he is forced to ask himself. The cop-ego he possessed of killing the wrongdoers is punctured; he is consumed by guilt and doubt. Vedha's nonchalance, and his rumination on the concept of dharma ensnare the righteous cop to engage in a moral dilemma. Vikram's discernment of good and bad is altered by the events he witnesses; he can see the "greyness," the point where the white and the black blend. This transformation fascinated me the most about the movie. If I could see people beyond the categorisation of good and bad, I could purge myself of the prejudice that I harbour against them. Good and bad are labels we attach to humans — we do unto others what we do not want from them*. Moralising is the least thing that the directors engage in Vikram Vedha; but you see what you want, and I did. 


(*An antithesis of Luke 6:31)