What happens when a man who is as tough as a rock, who is without any remorse, encounters an unexpected and unexplainable love from a girl who he has been held captive? Mahabir Bhati is one such man who discovers that life is not what he had imagined it to be and what he had believed to be all these years. The next few paragraphs break down the character and psyche of the character played by Randeep Hooda.
When a group of local gangsters kidnaps the daughter of a rich business tycoon, unlike others in his gang, Mahabir isn’t afraid of the kidnapping. He isn’t afraid of the rich, he isn’t afraid of dying like a dog in the hands of them.
Mahabir is a man who had made peace with himself and is ready for death.
When they decide to keep Veera in an abandoned place by providing her with just food and water for survival, he isn’t least bothered about anything else for her. After all, he is a kidnapper, why would someone even care about the person’s well-being?
Mahabir is a man who feels no remorse for his fellow beings.
When Mahabir catches one of his men trying to misbehave with Veera, he says to the guy – “She is just a consignment. Not a girl.”. After all, he sees her not more than a package that has to be delivered.
Mahabir is a man who is only focused on the work at hand, does not feel the need to protect/show pity for anyone around him.
When Veera describes the horrors of her uncle molesting her multiple times when she was young, he doesn’t know how to react, he just listens to her wailing and walks away from that place. Later, when Veera hugs him, he realizes that the struggles of being a woman in this world is not just confined to the poor, but also to the rich.
Mahabir is a man who is disturbed by the words of Veera, realizes the reason why Veera wants her freedom.
During their journey on the Highway, Mahabir discovers the other side of Veera, a side that Veera herself discovers for the first time. He lets her walk into open fields, lets her climb trees, lets her enjoy the rain, lets her enjoy the water flowing from the pumps.
Mahabir is a man who is confused to see Veera enjoying her newly found freedom.
When Mahabir and co. reach a dilapidated warehouse in Bengal to hold Veera captive, he vents out the anger on all the rich men who use the poor women for their pleasures. He is appalled at the class difference in society with respect to crimes committed.
Mahabir is a man who hates the rich completely, despises them to the core that he considers Veera as a representative of the rich and selling off her to a brothel is the perfect revenge he can take on the rich.
When Veera asks Mahabir about the song that he had been humming, he refuses to say anything about the song, that he even shouts her to go back to her room. After continuous pestering from Veera, he says that it was a song that his mother would sing when he cried. Veera is surprised to even imagine that Mahabir could cry. This moment reminds him of his mother and the song she would sing for him when he was small.
Mahabir is a man in whom there is a yearning that keeps reminding him for what he wants to be, but his current life keeps pulling him back to what it needs him to be.
When Veera dances her heart out right in the open, he is initially confused as to what has gotten into Veera, but later realizes that she has become a little too comfortable around him. A sense of fear, then engulfs around him as he sees himself as a bad man, who may even harm Veera. Hence, he decides to reluctantly drop her off to the police.
Mahabir is now a man who does not like being a good guy, who tries to return to being the so-called bad man that his life wants him to be.
The moment when Veera comes back to him at the bus station is the moment he realizes he has this unique, unusual affection towards Veera. He feels genuinely happy about her being with him.
Mahabir is a man who finds happiness inside of him with this newly found love. He also becomes a man has let himself go from the clutches of his past life.
When they find a place on top of the mountains and when Mahabir sees Veera cooking and cleaning their “house”, all that yearning he had for his mother’s affection has vanished in these moments with Veera. He was a man who believed that the days of someone showing him affection is well behind him and the fact that there is someone else other than his mother who genuinely cares for him, breaks him down completely.
Mahabir has been a man who has had a past that he never wants to forget, at least his mind never lets him. Earlier, when Veera asks that whether one bullet is enough to end a man’s life, Mahabir replies back saying that it kills two people – The person who is shot and the person who shoots. He feels that his life was over the moment he killed three people.
He has always been a seemingly fearless man all his life, who has been devoid of any kind of emotions/affection all these years. When someone starts doing the things that reminds of his mom, he does not know how to handle the feeling of being loved again after 20 years. He realizes what love can do to a person, that he has been dead for all these years, that he has lived a life devoid of all the emotions that a man has to go through in his life.
In this journey with Veera, Mahabir becomes free and Veera shows him how.