Sanjay Mishra: Brilliant Actor
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2023-04-30 11:21:17
About the Author
It is great
to see that Sanjay Mishra's effortless and excellent acting in Vadh was recognized
with him getting the Filmfare Best Actor (Critics') Award. His portrayal of how
a father who took a loan from a loan shark to send his son abroad and finds
himself in a position where he is continuously humiliated and threatened by the
thug, gets no support from his son and pushed to the wall, kills the loan shark
and meticulously disposes of the body and removes all evidence, does not get
weak in the face of a sustained investigation by a crooked policeman and leaves
town with his wife by giving his property to a economically deprived girl child's
family was extraordinary.
Sambhunath
Mishra (Sudhir Mishra) is a schoolteacher who teaches kids at home. He is
visited by the Prajapati, the loan shark who brings meat and alcohol in the
Brahmin home, gets Mishra and his wife Manju (Neena Gupta) to serve it. He
brings girls and uses their bedroom for sex where he throws the used condoms
which they have to remove. Mishra tolerates the humiliation but when Prajapati
asks him to bring one of his minor girl students for his pleasure, something
snaps and Mishra kills him with a screwdriver stab on the throat. He then chops
the body and disposes of the pieces, removes all evidence and tries to act as
if nothing has happened. When inspector Shakti comes looking for Prajapati, Mishra
manages to evade him too.
Sudhir
Mishra covers the entire gamut of expressions of a helpless father, a person
who is unable to pay back his debts and a person humiliated to the brink of
murder with elan. His interaction with the rats, whom he tries to capture, is
brilliant and holds meaning in the context of the film's story. But he comes
into his own the moment he decides to kill Prajapati. The remorseless (because for
him it is vadh and not hatya - the former is also a killing but it is
justified) manner in which he goes about doing things he would have never
dreamt of doing, the manner in which he disposes of the body and the manner in
which he convinces his wife are all done perfectly. The transformation from a
cowardly man who is suitably threatened by Prajapati to a man who is courageous
enough to execute him is amazing. Mishra was a deserving winner and this award
will push him to better himself in future screen appearances.
