Sehmat on Screen: Raazi

It takes courage to live the life that you characterize and it stays immortal, close to your heart. Every time it's a new character that you carry which of course happens once you embrace it with your art.

The characters from the 2018 Maghna Gulzar movie, Raazi are such. The power pack performance by Alia Bhatt as Sehmat is what mesmerizes me. Sehmat is portrayed as a feeble young lady styudying at Delhi University but her life turns topsy turvy when she is brought into a whole different reality where she unleashes the dark sides of war in a different nation. In all she lives as a spy but loves as a human.

"Vatan ke aage kuchh bhi nahi..."

When Sehmat mentions this, pointing the gun at her husband who is an enemy in the eyes of her nation, she had lost everything in that moment, moreover she lost herself. She lost her love, she lost her will to live, she was a robot at the hands of intelligencia, backed by the country. Who knew her very home would unwelcome her in future once she provides for the project assigned.

Sehmat is one such powerful character who is fearless and is destined to serve for what she had never imagined in her nightmare. When she has lost everything and performed her duty she returns to the only mentor she is left with. It is when she is feeling a pool of emotions. She starts reflecting over her life that is wasted. She has lost her love, she can't accept the fact that the fight between two nations would take her love away. If I reflect on what Sehmat is feeling, it is Viyog Ras, an emotion derived from Shringar Ras (love). It's not just love being separated but a bereavement forever that has created a void in her.

She hold her mentor responsible for all the innocent lives that have been lost. She is angry, she feels disgust, she is devastated, she longs for her lost life the phase where she was just an ordinary Sehmat.

"...maine apna zameer, apni zindagi, sab di apkeliye aur aapne meri jaan nahi bakshi thi..."

She is regretting her choices and feels that justice has not been done to her as she gave up her conscience, her life just to serve the country. She doesn't know if she is human anymore and doesn't want to see how dark the inside world is. She just wants to escape the situation as she is aware that her life is over she has no purpose to live for, her conscience is dead from inside. Sehmat's character at this stage reflects abhaav a complete paucity of human life she is left with. Here's my monologue as an adaptation of the scene from Raazi: