Written by Anas ArifMumbai | September 14, 2025 08:23 AM IST 5 min readManoj Bajpayee’s character, Dev, can be read as both a godlike figure and a lost wanderer.Once, long ago, a king ruled from within the gilded walls of his opulent castle. He was a man of courteous smiles and generous greetings, beloved by all who bowed before him. His kindness seemed effortless, his warmth sincere. But then, one night, a strange fire swept through his palace. And in the smoke, something darker emerged. It was in that ruin that the people saw him, not the king they thought they knew, but the man behind the mask. His kindness had been a performance, his smile a survival strategy. A calculated charm to secure adoration, and not affection. And when the flames died down, he turned against those who had built his throne, who had laboured endlessly to keep his kingdom beautiful. As if their sweat had betrayed him, as if their devotion had ignited the fire. Why do I tell you this tale? Because Jugnuma – The Fable, Manoj Bajpayee’s haunting new film, unfolds just like that ancient parable. A tale of kings and castles. Of fires no one can explain. Of a truth that reveals itself in mysterious ways.As the title suggests, it is a fable. But not all fables are meant to comfort; some exist to unsettle. Not all fables offer answers; some arrive only to pose questions. And like most classic fables, Jugnuma also features anthropomorphized animals. It opens with a figure between man and myth, playing somewhere between the mundane and the magical. We see Dev (Bajpayee), strapping on wings as though they were boots. Then he walks to the edge of a cliff and takes flight, like a falcon returning to the wind. He hovers over his dominion: a 5,000-acre fruit orchard spilling across three mountains. From above, he is detached and god-like as he surveys it all — the land, the trees, the workers. But gods rarely descend. And when they do, the world tilts. So, in one of the film’s most arresting scenes, Dev walks down the narrow path. He greets the labourers with folded hands. As he passes, a murmur trails behind him. “A rich man is heading down,” they whisper.Also Read | Triptii Dimri and Siddhant Chaturvedi’s Dhadak 2 seethes with the rage of filmmaker Shazia IqbalThis is exactly the strength of Jugnuma. Director Raam Reddy understands he is working within the language of magical realism, and, like in literature, he uses it not as an ornament but instead as a critique. In the tradition of the genre, where the surreal often speaks truth to power, Jugnuma unfolds as an allegory of colonialism, of dispossession. We learn that Dev’s lush estate once belonged to the villagers, until it was seized, colonised, and handed to his forefathers as reward for their loyalty to the British crown. The land changed names, but not hands. And now, the descendants of those dispossessed till the same soil, not as owners, but as labourers. So when, post-interval, a massive fire breaks out, consuming blocks of trees across various wings of the mountainous estate, it’s these workers who spend the entire night trying to contain it, sustaining grave injuries in the process. Yet, by morning, they are the ones arrested by the police, accused of causing the fire.What if the resistance doesn’t come from the workers at all, but from the land itself? From the nature Dev claims to protect. The entire film unfolds like a mystery, with every character searching for who is setting the fires across the estate. But no one, even for a moment, stops to ask: why? Because the ‘who’ is a distraction. The film isn’t interested in the culprit; it’s in the reason that truth begins to surface. And this, too, symbolises the spirit of the fable, of myth and metaphor, where even fireflies (jugnu), with their brief, glowing lives, serve a deeper purpose. In nature, they light up to attract mates. Here, their luminescence becomes a signal, perhaps even a warning, to Dev and his family. A whisper from the earth, reminding them of where they truly belong. It’s a radical idea, one that casts Dev not as a villain, but as a misguided protagonist. A man not evil, but simply lost. In that sense, the film becomes as much about a family’s search for home as it is about the villagers’ longing for their land. From one angle, Dev’s family are colonisers fleeing a land never truly theirs. From another, they are winged wanderers, like fallen fairies, trying to return to their home. Seen through another lens, they are godly beings, sent to Earth to return the land to its true inheritors. Once their purpose was fulfilled, they fled into the mountains. The imagery of flight can be read in many ways. For in magical realism, the miracle is not in what unfurls, but in the eyes that behold it.Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.© IE Online Media Services Pvt LtdTags:Manoj BajpayeeRaam Reddy