By Mehr Jan
I’ll be honest: I probably wouldn’t have noticed Dhurandhar at all — I’m not the most avid Indian film watcher — if my cousin hadn’t mentioned a new Bollywood movie that’s focusing on Pakistan, but in a way no one would have expected. Most films that lean on patriotic adrenaline follow the same predictable arc: India rises, Pakistan falls. But this one? It takes a completely different route — by reviving Karachi’s infamous Lyari gang scene and stretching it into a geopolitical fever dream Tempting? Add Ranveer Singh into the mix and you become somewhat intrigued. The film positions itself as Singh’s biggest espionage project yet — sending an Indian intelligence operative deep into Karachi’s gritty region. But the longer I watched, the more one question echoed in my mind: Lyari? Why Lyari?
When Lyari Becomes the “Terror Capital of the World”
This is where things take a sharp detour from reality. The film recasts Lyari — a place we Pakistanis know for its gang rivalries, political entanglements, football talent and deep-rooted community resilience — as the global headquarters of terrorism. Yep, visit the place now and you’ll see the extent of their half-baked research. Honestly, that leap alone could qualify as its own fantasy subgenre. Akshaye Khanna steps in as a fictional Abdul Rehman Baloch, unmistakably based on Rehman Dakait. In Karachi’s real history, Dakait was notorious, yes — but a ganglord, not a transnational terror architect. In Dhurandhar, though, he transforms into the all-powerful “Apex Predator,” supposedly tied into a sprawling cross-border conspiracy that not a single Pakistani has ever heard of. Then there’s Sanjay Dutt as Chaudhry Aslam — renamed “The Jinn.” Surprisingly, it might be the trailer’s strongest casting. But pairing Aslam with Dakait as if they were partners in some epic geopolitical plot? Anyone who knows Karachi’s history would blink twice. It’s the equivalent of rewriting sworn enemies as secret allies. Arjun Rampal’s Major Iqbal might be the boldest leap of imagination yet — an omnipotent puppeteer controlling “every move in Pakistani politics.” As a Pakistani, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed and sighed at the same time. If only our politics were that straightforward. And then there’s R Madhavan as Ajay Sanyal, loosely modeled on India’s NSA Ajit Doval, determined to infiltrate Lyari and “end terrorism at its core.” Watching this as someone who’s walked through Karachi, who understands its texture, complexity and contradictions, the whole setup feels less like reinterpretation and more like a video game universe where cities are sketched in broad, inaccurate strokes.
Bollywood’s Persistent Obsession With Pakistan
After watching the trailer twice — once in confusion, once in disbelief — I couldn’t help noticing how familiar this pattern feels. Films like Mission Majnu, Uri, Fighter, Tiger Zinda Hai and others follow the same formula: noble Indian agent, chaotic Pakistani setting, a threat exaggerated to cinematic proportions. Accuracy has never been a box that Bollywood feels compelled to tick. Online reactions in Pakistan have been a mix of humor and bafflement. Memes compare Lyari’s depiction to dystopian war zones from action games. Many point out how nothing — not the architecture, not the streets, not even the color palette — resembles Karachi. And then there is the viral track — the one featuring Akshaye Khanna swaying in what is styled as a Balochi-inspired setting, except the soundtrack is anything but. Instead of regional rhythms, we hear a Bahraini Arabic artist rapping about karak chai and cars, creating a jarring mismatch which is catchy but just so wrong! Others are fixated on how real personalities were reshaped into caricatures for the sake of narrative convenience.
What stood out most is how comfortable Dhurandhar seems in amplifying anxieties instead of exploring nuance. At a time when India-Pakistan relations are stagnant and sensitive, cinema can still manage to hold enormous influence. It can soften narratives, humanize “the other,” or at least attempt authenticity. This film doesn’t seem interested in any of that. Instead, it leans heavily into spectacle — heroic Indian agents, vilified Pakistani landscapes and a storyline that folds every rivalry into an inflated terror plot. It mirrors more of India’s internal cinematic imagination than anything remotely grounded in Pakistan’s reality. Maybe the film will offer gripping performances. Maybe Ranveer Singh will carry it with his trademark intensity. But based on the trailer alone, Dhurandhar feels less like a story about Pakistan and more like a story about how Bollywood continues to view Pakistan. And yes — I’ll probably be watching it, mainly out of curiosity so as to see just how far an Indian film can stretch when it decides to make Lyari the center of the universe.
