Memsahab is based on the cruel incidents post the 1984 riots between a section of Hindus and the Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of North India.. Ensuing these riots, the Sikhs were targeted by the hindu fundamentalists and several Sikh families were ruined.
Yukta Mookhey plays the character of Anjali, who is a victim of the riots and is pushed into prostitution. This young girl Anjali’s mother is raped by the villains and her father is shot dead. What an horrifying impact would this have on the girl! This Anjali grows up with such traumatic memories of her childhood.
The director seeks to portray reality by actually shooting in a few bye lanes of Kamathipura (a red light area in Mumbai), where Anjali is one of the many women indulging in flesh trade. Every night, this woman has a new ‘Sahab’.
Some unexpected incidents take place and she stumbles upon the killers of her parents. She starts searching for them and hunting them one by one. In the process where she takes revenge on the killers of her dad, she realizes that the violence wouldn’t help her get back her victimized parents. She then realizes that even after taking revenge she still could not erase her traumatic memories of childhood. Wisdom dawns on her and then she takes startling decision in the end.
Yukta works hard to prove her acting skills. Contrastingly in the first half, she is in ‘lehenga-cholis’ and battling with street goondas. Post mid-way, she gets into skinny skirts and picks up a gun and goes after the bad guys.
More about the protagonist in Memsahab, Yukta Mookhey was crowned Miss World in 1999. However, she was not fortunate enough like her predecessors Sushmita Sen (Miss Universe) and Aishwarya Rai (Miss World). Even Juhi Chawla once Miss India, Lara Dutta the Miss Universe 2000 have had success in Bollywood. Unfortunately, like them she has not yet had a hit film in her Bollywood career.
About the performances, Govind Namdeo as Kashinath plays a negative role and the culprit of destroying the family of Anjali in 1984 riots. Yukta, as she grows with fire of taking revenge, Rufee Khan as her aficionado Rahul is okay. Vijay Raaz and Rajpal Yadav do not impress much, so does the direction.
In Memsahab, Yukta has to be lauded for staged a comeback with a sincere effort. She has adorned a bold new look in this flick. Yukta admits that getting into the character of a prostitute was a bit tough and bold too but she portrayed it with honesty. Her idol is Shabana Azmi who played an award winning role of a prostitute in ‘Mandi’
Memsahab is a woman-oriented movie with a social message of non-violence.
Cast of Memsahab:
Anjali – Yukta Mookhey
Vijay Raaz
Kashinath – Govind Namdeo
Rahul – Rafique Khan
Rajpal Yadav
Lalji – Ehsaan Khan
Mohnish Behl
Nandu – Akshay Verma
Nilanjana Bhattacharya
Shoorveer Tyagi
Rajeeta Kochar
CREDITS of Memsahab:
Banner – Kailash Entertainment
Producer – Kailash Shukla
Director – Arshad Siddiqui
Choreography – Jay Borade
Action – Hanif Sheikh
Editor – Bibhuti Bhushan
Sound – Buta Singh
Story / Writer – Arshad Siddiqui
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Memsahab, movie review
