Banke Bihari

Review: Banke Bihari MLA (Bhojpuri)
Producer: Ramesh Rao
Director: Babloo Soni
Writer: Babloo Soni
Music: Gunwant Sen-Raj Sen
Cast: Ravi Kissen, Rambha, Kunal Singh, Savita Prabune, Vijay Khare.
The film has a major star cast from Ravi Kissen to Rambha to Kunal Singh and it was a major commercial success in UP/Bihar and also wherever it was screened. The success of the film must lie in the star cast and its better production value rather than any strong story line. The film is usual fare with a rural India in the context. Not very imaginative story.
It is about Ravi Kissen being an unemployed young man whose father used to consider him a way ward but mother would pamper him. Village people thought that he was a nice person with no malice. He would generally play with small kids and get fooled by young women of the village.
Then one day while coming back from a marriage he found some goons trying to outrage the modesty of the heroine (Rambha) and fights with them to save her. The brother and his wife of Rambha were killed by the Thakur and she was lawyer at Patna High Court. Then once when the goons of Thakur attacked and hit his mother he went ballistic and hit back. The Thakur’s men came back and he had to run but his father was picked up and he was arrested by police. From jail he contests the assembly elections and wins the election against Thakur who was the sitting MLA. He then goes on to teach the Thakur and his men a lesson.
The film has all the ingredient of a typical Bhojpuri film: rural context, exploiting Thakur, voluptuous heroine, raunchy songs, fights and corrupt police. The presence of South Indian star Rambha in her revealing dresses is a major draw. Ravi Kissen is as it is the most popular hero of the Bhojpuri films. So it was the combination that worked.
The Bhojpuri films are made for a certain kind of audience in mind who has strong rural roots. They are nostalgic about the loss of their land, their imaginary fight with the local lord, their fantasy about fair maiden and the raunchy song and dance ritual so common in marriages in the Bhojpur region. But what seems to have attracted the viewers is the simpleton turned powerful MLA avenger- a dream shared many in politically charged Bihar. It is a state where people still think that politics must change the way we live in. Hence a common man’s fight becomes every one’s fight only when Banke becomes an MLA. He is a symbol of peoples’ faith in democracy and democratic institutions. It shows that despite all the failures faced by Indian democracy, the fait of people in democracy is not dead. Not yet!