Ardh Satya

About the film

Ardh Satya (lit. 'Half truth') is a 1983 action drama film directed by Govind Nihalani from a screenplay by Vijay Tendulkar. The film was based on the short story, Surya by S. D. Panvalkar, and featured dialogues by Vasant Dev.

In this acclaimed cop-drama, Anant Velankar, played by Om Puri, is a policeman struggling with the evils around him and with his own frailties. The film also stars Amrish Puri, Smita Patil, and Sadashiv Amrapurkar, and features a theme poem by the Marathi writer Dilip Chitre. The title of the film comes from a poem written by Chitre.

Plot

The film opens at a party where Anant Welankar, a sub-inspector with Bombay police, meets Jyotsna Gokhale, a lecturer in literature at a local college. They seem to hit it off despite some initial skirmishing about ideology, and the friendship blossoms into a relationship.

Anant brings diligence, enthusiasm and a definite idealism to his job. But the job is harsh. There is a deep nexus between the local mafia, the cops and the (corrupt) politicians. Honest himself, Anant falls among the lower rungs of the police hierarchy and has very limited scope of authority on the state of affairs in his area.

When Anant arrests three common thugs, he is asked to meet with their boss, Rama Shetty, a don in the local mafia. Anant refuses all of Shetty's attempts to get his men out or to entice Anant to join him. Shetty decides to watch over Anant.

Production

The film was financed by four producers, two of them processing laboratory owners, one a garment trader and the fourth an industrialist. In an interview with India Today, Nihalani said "Though it's still an uphill task to find backers, 10 years ago it wouldn't have been possible at all." Nihalani was looking for a new actor to play the role of Rama Shetty when writer Tendulkar convinced him to see the play of Amrapurkar. It was a Marathi play called "Hands Up".

Key details