Who the fuck is Gaitonde?
When you come across an onscreen character, what do you really think of? Like, when you see Jack Dawson, what’s the first thought that pounces onto your mind? Or when Andy Dufresne crosses the wetness of your head, what strikes you immediately? What does Marla Singer mean to your level of cynicism? Do you imagine Arnold uttering a Spanish phrase in a thick Austrian accent every time you are reminded of Terminator? I am posing these questions because that initial thought explains a lot about the relationship we share with our favourite filmi characters.
Also, by this logic, it’d be safe to affirm that Ganesh Gaitonde from Sacred Games is a rather unique character.
Why?
Because when I think of him, I don’t know what to think of except him — his entire being. This, after unapologetically consuming two entire seasons of one of the most well-written and executed series in the Stream Age, which prominently featured him.
To be frank, all fictional characters share a common factor: they are based in reality. But Gaitonde remains a curio for several reasons. He is conflicted not only with the world he inhabits but also with the world he wants to enter, not to forget the world he can’t wait to destroy. His realities are as distinct as his spectrum of beliefs. In one episode, he wants to be the crime lord while in the very next, he is willing to abandon everything he’s built for the sake of love. At one point, he feels he is god. At another point, he wants to experience god. It’s difficult to pulse him. His endless vulnerabilities assign him a strength otherwise seldom seen in a desi narrative. Which could explain why he is gradually going mad; maybe his relentless pursuit of the impossible deserve a fitting tragedy.
The story begins with him resenting his father for being effete but it was a facade played up by his guilty conscience. He secretly sympathizes with him because his mother was the most powerful entity in their house. And as per his eventual design, he eliminates whoever is omnipotent in his view. Stepping on from one stone to another, it seems like he is chasing quick money via debauchery. On closer inspection, it’s the power he is after. Now, in a country like India, elections can be a good conduit for such an ascent but he has his doubts there as well. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in democracy, just that he fully understands that the system in place doesn’t assure you the rightful winner at the end of the race.
So, what does a person of his calibre do? Screw the system, obviously.
So much so his journey reaches a point that he conflates his desire (to get to the top) with his hunger (to escape his self). To us, the viewers, he is in search of a father he never had. To him, it’s a much deeper problem: he can’t forgive himself for killing his mother. His earliest lesson in life presented itself through uninhibited violence. It’s not his fault that he can’t picture the collateral damage of love and trust.
If great ideas come from rejection, then great stories come from retrospection. In Gaitonde’s memoir, we walk along with him through his ups and downs; his tryst with hopelessness and opulence, godlessness and godfulness, romance and betrayal. Throughout, he stays true with who he is as a person. And yet, it’s almost inhumane to extract one particular characteristic, so as to bestow upon him for eternity. He has temper issues but he can be calmer than a Hindu cow too. Although he is prone to pulling the trigger, he pivots for peace when required. He can’t sleep anymore, not because he is afraid of waking up but because he has seen too much. He is a pawn on the chessboard and he is planning to turn into the queen; he interns so many things within that tiny body of his.
Fortunately, we live in the Era of Memes where digging layers isn’t appreciated so it’s fun to float foul-mouthed dialogues and laugh at his inability to pass three sentences without throwing an expletive. In fact it won’t be a huge surprise if Gaitonde used the C-word for Dawson, the G-word for Dufresne, the R-word for Marla and the L-word for Terminator. But then, here again, his personality would be getting restricted to his words when there is much more to him on subtler levels.
