Can a film like Dhurandhar dare to position a character like Yalina outside the realm of pawn-romantic interest emotional core? What would it look like if Yalina participated in the same war that Hamza is waging?
A character like Yalina (Sara Arjun) in Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar movies is far from a flowerpot role. When we meet her in the first film, her choices, her rebellion and her contributions feel deliberate. She trusts a stranger called Hamza (Ranveer Singh), agreeing to a relationship that promises love, but more importantly, an escape from the shackles of patriarchy.
It’s all quite exciting: her helping Hamza secure a powerful position in Lyari politics, and her emotional chokehold over him, a ruthless Lyari gangster. But the deeper we go into the story, we realise Yalina doesn’t just happen to fall in love with Hamza. Her role in the larger scheme of things is already written. She’s a pawn —tragically, a smart one — with the potential to be so much more than she is ultimately reduced to.
Yalina escapes one form of patriarchy only to enter another that’s maybe not as on-the-nose, but the shackles are very much present. No matter how much freedom the relationship with Hamza gives her, she is never given the opportunity to rise above the role of his “better half.” She’s not the typical ornamental female lead: she takes great risks but the rewards don’t belong to her. She makes big strides but the benefits aren’t directed to her.
The big twist
The difference between the Yalina in the first film and the second is glaring. Yalina from Dhurandhar has agency, the ability to love, opinions about Lyari, Pakistan and its socio-political condition. She dances with abandon and surrenders to the man she loves but when he leaves her stranded, she doesn’t hesitate to hold him accountable. The Yalina from Dhurandhar: The Revenge becomes a tool in Jaskirat/Hamza’s war. We knew this eventuality would come.
But that it would be so blatant and without thought is a real missed opportunity. Her risks escalate the story, but the story doesn’t belong to her. Yalina’s emotional openness is what gives Hamza/Jaskirat access to closed spaces, to complex politics and an inter-personal vulnerability that she allows, despite such a volatile surrounding. The film does not recognise her labour, but in fact brands it as a “romance”.
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Dhurandhar: The Revenge doesn’t stay with Yalina long enough to let her character process what she’s gone through. The creative powers chose to end her arc with an emotional phone call, where she says nothing, and cries endlessly with Akhri Ishq playing in the background. There is a refreshing moment of vulnerability in this scene, especially since it comes after the most outlandishly violent faceoff between Arjun Rampal’s Major Iqbal and Hamza. But Yalina is ultimately left with the memories of a relationship that was never supposed to culminate into a stable companionship, and a child she has to raise by herself.
This is tragic. Can a film like Dhurandhar dare to position a character like Yalina outside the realm of pawn/romantic interest/emotional core? What would Dhurandhar look like if Yalina participated in the same war that Hamza is waging? Would a film like Dhurandhar — polarising, loud, animalistic, war-mongering — lose its machismo appeal with this kind of a treatment? Let’s begin this line of imagination with one of the biggest spoilers in Dhurandhar: The Revenge. We learn that Yalina’s father, Jameel Jamali (Rakesh Bedi), is also an Indian spy, working in Karachi as a politician for the last 40 or so years.
Also read: Dhurandhar: The Revenge has a screenplay mired in clichés, but plays to the gallery
He’s given a whole scene to explain how instrumental he was to all the happenings in both films, with a groovy background track. Some cheeky dialogues are exchanged between a bloodied Hamza and Jamali. Audiences’ jaws dropp at the reveal, their minds churning at all the Easter eggs, and promises made to rewatch part 1 now that they’ve filled a key narrative gap. I can’t help but imagine how it would be to have Yalina in the car with them. Currently, we have tiny glimpses of a conversation between Yalina and Jamali on how to save Hamza, but those felt like a last minute addition to support the big twist.
A flavour that flickers
If we were to draw parallels, Major Iqbal is set up as the main protagonist in the second film. He’s given the narrative luxury of a backstory, snippets from his family lineage, including his torturous father who served in the Pakistani Army. We learn so much about Pinda, Jaskirat’s best friend, from when he was Jaskirat’s brother from another mother to when he turns up as a drug identifier, working with ISI in the cross-border drugs/politics nexus. We even get a whole song from Pinda’s point of view, seeing Jaskirat as a scary hallucination to the song Destiny. But what about Yalina? Who is she outside of her relationship with Hamza? What would she choose if the story arc did not require her to support him?
Also read: Why Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar films are India's very own wish-fulfilment military drama
To be clear, one isn’t asking for more screen time, a hefty back story or punchier dialogues. Mainstream Hindi cinema often mistakes visibility for agency. Yalina is a central character in the world of Dhurandhar. Aditya Dhar and his team already took a step forward by not reducing her to a stereotypical “heroine” role. One is merely asking for a little more enriching of her personality. Wouldn’t it be powerful if she stormed into Jaskirat/Hamza’s life as a fully formed character? Wouldn’t it be exciting to watch a small, breather scene showing Yalina in her element (I’m thinking of Wamiqa Gabbi’s scenes in Khufiya)?
Yalina isn’t fragile or dull. She isn’t relegated to the sidelines, but she is brought in only conveniently at several points in both the Dhurandhar films when the action needs a pause. She is written like a serious character but used — intermittently — like an intermission. And this is what separates her from characters like Kashibai in Bajirao Mastani or Veronica in Cocktail.
Both these characters are not intermissions in their respective films, and neither are they reduced to “emotional centres”. They are disruptors; twisting and contorting the narrative to give it depth and heft. They demand attention, they command importance and walk side-by-side with the main characters. The films would be incomplete without them. Metaphorically speaking, Yalina could have been the salt of Dhurandhar, but as it stands, she’s merely a flavour that flickers.
