Gandhi never uttered Hey Ram before he died. Neither does Hey Ram depict him saying them out. The title, and on a bigger perspective, the movie itself, is a mega - tongue in cheek expression by Kamal Streetsmart Haasan. Through one of his most expressive films, he pretends as though he is going to bring shame to the title of the father of the nation but instead knocking us off with a brilliantly coreographed climax where we realise after a lot of self questioning, that Gandhi was indeed a great man - A very funny person, in fact.

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But people who still believe HeyRam was a film about Gandhism and anti Gandhism and Gandhi in general have completely missed the bus. Heyram is the story of a man called Saket Ram whose name curiously is also the original name of Ayodhya - The place thats the source of both famous myth and infamous mysery. Heyram is the story of a country and its heavily explosive religious dynamics. Like a Baloon that can go phut anytime and generate first order chaos. In effect, Heyram , as a Professor from the university of Iowa put it, is a film about individual and collective madness.

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And the toughest job for any person to ever do is to write about the director of Heyram without writing about the writer of the film. It is the deep multi-layered plot that gives way for those out of the world allegories from the director. It is the super shrewd references and sub plots from the writer that enable the technically brilliant shots of the film to look as good as they do. In effect , Hey Ram is more of a writer's film with one of Indian Cinema's most well crafted plots. But this article has the Director in focus. So here are some of the observations that many intense lovers of the movie have made about it.

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This is a compilation of the thoughts of some of the ardent fans of the film :-.

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1) Black and white for current and color for past indicates Gandhi brought color this is further reinstated toward the end when we see Gandhiji's painting in the wall and when the window is opened, light comes in - Gandhiji showed us the light

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2) Nasser and the riots give an idea that violence was there when Gandhiji was there as well as at the current day - Nasser is just trying to do his duty to pacify the riots while Saket Ram the old man dies, he shows a helpless face - trying to say that similarly Gandhi also tried his best but invariably lives were taken away. If Nasser was the cause for Saket Ram's death then Gandhi is the cause for the other deaths during pre-independence partition time. Kamal again proves he is a great director.

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3) His allegory that a blind girl helpless is amidst all those violent killings is a representation for innocent people amidst cruel blood thirsty individuals such as himself who killed for a cause but still can see the pain and suffering in spite of the obvious. So in short is tooth for tooth and eye for eye the right thing? - The allegoric metaphor of the poor little blind girl says it all....

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4) During the killing of Rani Mukherjee pyrotechnics were used - a technical stand point equal to its english counterparts Saving Private Ryan/Band of brothers etc... where similar technics were used - blood oozing scene for instance

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.5) Also during the recollection of her killing he juxtaposes a lizard which struggles around in blood - which symbolizes a species that is carnivorous and quite a killer for filling its stomach still does not like being pushed in a pool of blood. Its way too intelligent to even explain in words.

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6) The exchange of ideas of Atul Kulkarni and his second wife Vasundara Das is a exchange of dialogue between the good and the evil(remember Atul says it is not wrong if you think in the hunter's angle and not in the hunted's angle) - where his one side of the brain vouches to be a Gandhian while the other to be a Hitler - which is obviously also juxtaposed in another scene where his mind oscillates between a Hitler's photo, a Gandhi's photo and to balance it a hindu Goddess's photo - between whats good, whats bad and whats right!

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7) When Atul Kulkarni passes on the gun to Saket Ram, so does he pass a hatred

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8) This hatred is so strong that it preempts Vasundhara's element of good nature which could have easily gotten into Saket Ram but he juxtaposes the anger superseding his wife's good moral values by showing a violent love making scene where he tames the good over the evil. He again symbolically represents a heavy duty gun being used for target practice that his mind thinks but his body merely makes love.

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9) Gandhi is shown to have a light sense of humor and down to Earth. That coupled with the fact that Shah Rukh Khan (Amjed)' dialogue exchanges stating we can all be brothers in his usual bubly manner tells us that both are light humored people and are taking the bigger issues very easily and in a very intellectual and sensible manner. He gets a feeling his friend's death would serve a cause if Gandhi is let go. He becomes a Gandhian eventually. These are thoughts that slowly creeps into the audience's head while watching .

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