Asoka – Santosh Sivan Weaves Poetry In Motion As He Explores The Mauryan Emperor’s Spiritual Turn

Asoka is a fictional but intensely humane take on the spiritual shift in one of ancient India’s most important rulers – Samrat Ashoka of the Mauryan dynasty. We all know about Emperor Ashoka, from our middle school textbooks if nothing else, and how a bloody war in Kalinga transformed him from Chanda to Dhamma but this Santosh Sivan directorial takes it a step further or rather a step back. It explores what may have led to a royal becoming as cruel & cold hearted as Ashoka is known to have been.

From unfulfilled personal ambition to emotional blackmail designed to keep a truly talented warrior from taking over what would have fairly been his to family politics which not only alienated him deeply from childhood but also enveloped him in personal tragedies to losing his one true love, a number of factors make up Santosh Sivan’s ‘Chanda Asoka’. They also help in making the audience sympathise with the character but without ever justifying his actions. You feel a chill down your spine as Asoka turns heartless (a feeling personified by characters like Asoka’s best friend, Asoka’s wife or even his own younger brother). This film strikes that perfect balance of making a character human without whitewashing his faults. And it is this balance that perfectly encapsulates the transformation of the man from Chanda to Dhamma in the last 15 minutes or so of the movie.

But here too Sivan is cognisant that this spiritual turn cannot just come out of personal remorse, it has to be bigger than that because quite frankly Ashoka was bigger than that. While his misfortunes may have shaped his path, his successes as a warrior and king too had played its part and hence such a complete spiritual turn must have had to address both these aspects of Asoka’s personality. And that’s exactly what the film aims at and is successful in achieving.

The entire sequence of Asoka’s transformation is one of the most remarkable scenes of Indian cinema. The destruction is now laid bare in front of his eyes with no cosmetic or diplomatic filters. He must wade through a sea of blood & gore & confront the reality that his mere touch pollutes the water for the dying. And in this universal destruction, the personal finds him as he locates his lost love Kaurwaki & her kid brother whom he had vowed to protect. Now he must confront once again the absolute truth of his actions. And then happens what is purported to happen in philosophical texts when one is confronted with truth – change.

Personally, I found the film to be poetry in motion. Sure, there were commercial aspects of it that could’ve been avoided but if you let that go, Asoka is a masterpiece that boasts of one of Shah Rukh Khan’s career best performances. Add to it the excellent cinematography and haunting music and you have a film that remains woefully shortchanged.

Direction – Santosh Sivan

Cast – Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Ajith Kumar, Sooraj Balaji, Rahul Dev, Subhashini Ali, Danny Denzgongpa, Harshita Bhatt