Gulaal

In the fictional town of Rajpur, Dilip (Raj Singh Chaudhary), a law student who is a Rajput from Bikaner, and his faithful servant, Bhanwar (Mukesh Bhatt), secure housing in an old, run-down British-era pub. Here Dilip meets Rananjay Singh “Ransa” (Abhimanyu Singh), a prince who despises the ideologies of his father and the aristocracy. Ransas straightforward and fearless personality has quite an effect on the mild-mannered Dilip. Shortly, Dilip visits the university hostel where he is ragged by a gang of university thugs, led by Jadwal (Pankaj Jha). They strip him and lock him in a room with Anuja (Jesse Randhawa), a young lecturer in the same university.

Both Dilip and Anuja are released naked. Dilips brother tells him to ignore the event and that things were the same in his days, effectively stating that the society as a whole hasn't changed much since his time. But Ransa disagrees and tells Dilip that they should avenge this act. Initially, Dilip is reluctant but finally gives in and goes along with Ransa, after Ransa provokes him to give the thugs a taste of their own medicine. But the tables are turned and both Dilip and Ransa are beaten and are ragged and thrown out of the hostel.

Ransa meets Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon), a local figure who is trying to gather support for the Rajputana separatist movement, who allows them to proceed with the plan to injure Jadwal. Ransa and Dilip ambush Jadwal, but the other thugs corner them in a cinema hall. Dukey Bana intervenes and rescues them. Dukey Bana then convinces Ransa to compete in the General Secretary Elections at the university. Running against Ransa is his fathers out-of-wedlock daughter, Kiran (Ayesha Mohan).

Ransa is kidnapped by his fathers out-of-wedlock son Karan (Aditya Srivastava), who asks him to withdraw from the elections. Ransa mocks him and Karan kills him. Taking advantage of the situation, Dukey Bana makes Dilip to take Ransas place in the election. The chances of Dilip winning are minimal, so Dukey Bana bribes the electoral panel to rig the count in Dilips favour. Dilip wins the election to become the general secretary.

Kiran then seduces Dilip and convinces him to allow her to become the cultural secretary. Dukey Bana then starts using the funds for the Rajputana separatist movement. When Dilip finds out about this he goes to confront Dukey Bana about the funds. Bana lets Dilip know about the movement and tells him that the funds are being used for it. Dilip is not convinced and tries to reason with Bana.

A frustrated Bana takes him to his country estate where his thugs have killed Jadwal and shows him the body to intimidate him. Anuja, is thrown out of the hostel and moves in with Dilip. Kiran gets pregnant and is angry with Dilip for being careless about it. She gets an abortion and leaves Dilip. Anuja tries to make Dilip understand that Kiran has no interest in leading a married life and leaves him.

A frustrated Dilip resigns from his post and Kiran steps in. In a private meeting, an irate Dukey threatens Karan and Kiran by telling them that the only reason theyre alive is because of their links to the local king. She then tries to seduce Dukey Bana, but she fails when Bhati (Deepak Dobriyal), Dukeys second-in-command, comes looking for Dukey.Dilip, blinded by his love for Kiran, becomes violent and aggressive. Anuja also decides to leave him.

Meanwhile Dilip finds out about Kiran from Banas mistress, Madhuri (Mahi Gill). He grabs a gun, goes to Banas house and shoots him. While dying, Bana tells him that Kiran used Dilip to get to him. At the same time, Karan reveals to his group of thugs that once Dukey Bana is out of the way, the Rajputana movement will have no choice but to choose Karan as its new leader and therefore legitimise his royal status. They conclude that to get rid of Dukey, they must first eliminate Bhati.

Dilip wants to hear the truth from Kiran, so he tells Bhati to get her on the phone. Kiran refuses to answer, so Bhati goes off to find her and is killed by Karans thugs. Dilip comes to meet Kiran who tells him that all she wanted to was use him to become general secretary. Dilip rejects her explanation and almost shoots her but gets shot by thugs. Despite his injuries, Dilip walks back to his house and dies there.

The film ends with Karan as the head of the Rajputana movement, while Kiran sheds a tear as one of the loyal faithful.Parallel to the plot there is an interesting character of Dukey Banas brother Prithvi Bana played by Piyush Mishra. He wears bizarre dress and seems a psychotic, although, he talks very satirically and is often abused and slapped by Dukey banna for this. It is told in flashback that he was once a guitarist in his young days. Along with him there is a person characterised as Ardhanarishvara, who is killed by Dukey Bana mistakenly when Dukey Bana was outraged with his brother and aims to shoot him and misses.

Gulaal received positive reviews from critics. Anupama Chopra of NDTV gave three stars and referred to Anurag Kashyap as Anti-Yash Chopra. Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave it three stars and said that fantastically watchable film that scores high on moments. Nikhat Kazmi gave the film three stars and said that the film scores in having taut performances and a gritty screenplay as well.

Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL.in gave the film 3.5 stars and said Anurag scripts every character cleverly providing an identity to even the smallest characters and also a contrast in form of another character true playwright style. He even has the jesters coming in to bring some comic relief but also more importantly they bring in a message.[citation needed ] Tamil writer Charu Nivedita said this film is the best political film ever in Hindi and a document of current political history.

[citation needed ].The film was screened at the 2009 London Film Festival Since then, the film has gained significant cult following. Gulaal is also one of the films featured in Avijit Ghoshs book, 40 Retakes: Bollywood Classics You May Have Missed.