Talvar shows Bollywood is afraid to handle the truth

Meghna Gulzar's Talvar is a "fictional dramatisation of true life events" of the Aarushi Talwar murder case, the film's official website tells you. The film is "based on" the Noida double murders, its promos aggressively insisted pre-release. The operative words in both sentences lie in single quotes. They are meant to remind the film is not the real deal.

So the murdered girl of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar is called Shruti, not Aarushi. The Talwars, too, are renamed. They are Ramesh and Nutan Tandon, played by Neeraj Kabi and Konkona Sen Sharma - cast more because they resemble the Talwars than proven acting skills. Irrfan's CBI sleuth Arun Kumar becomes Ashwin Kumar.

Such alterations would seem ridiculous in a Hollywood film, more so when you consider almost all details of the case are faithfully portrayed. (The Hollywood comparison, like it or not, crops up because that is where the Bollywood lot has lately picked the real life fad from, like most other things its does).

In the case of Talvar, such rechristening may not strike as minor deviation if you followed the case closely. The name Aarushi, for one, became a symbol of what the system has come to be for the common man. Which trains focus on an awful truth: If Talvar was sold as a film about the Noida double murders, if all characters and plot are the same, if Meghna had the guts to caste actors who actually look like Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in pivotal roles, why did she have to change names?

Talvar simply underlines a basic Bollywood scare. Hindi cinema's fascination with real characters may be happily growing. Research and writing on such scripts may have drastically improved too. But no one dares yet to flawlessly, fearlessly depict pure truth.

There are controversies to fend. The ever-bristling ghost of protests looms large, for we live in times when the culture of intolerance is only growing.

Controversy, stay orders on release, and bans after all happen all too easily in our country, to jeopardise the box-office run of a film. Meghna, returning two duds - Filhaal and Just Married - in over a decade (plus an episode of Sanjay Gupta's highly forgettable Dus Kahaniyan), was obviously in no mood to invite bans right now. Her caution is justified. Manish Gupta's Rahasya, another film based on the same case, had to rechristen the Talwars as Mahajans.

Aarushi's name was changed to Ayesha. This, because Rahasya was completed before the final verdict and the Talwars had threatened legal action against any adaptation of the case.

Films based on real people in India are forced to take one of two routes. Like Talvar or Rahasya they can alter names wholly or slightly to pretend they are, quoting Meghna's precautionary note, "fictional dramatisation of true life events".

Or, like Mary Kom and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, the film can resort to only glorifying protagonists, ending up with characters sans depth or layers.

That is skewered reality actually, more often than not more dangerous than commercial make-belief.