Ranvijay’s Family Tree In ‘Animal,’ Explained: Who Is Aziz The Butcher?

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There was a lot of uproar when Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the man who directed the 2017 film Arjun Reddy, remade as Kabir Singh in Hindi, said that his next film was going to show people what violence in films truly was. Now, he seems to be a money-minded filmmaker first, which is why he got Ranbir Kapoor, one of the biggest names in Hindi cinema, to star as the protagonist of allegedly his most violent film, Animal. It was released not long ago, and the general reception was divided. Some said the film is quite misogynistic, glorifying toxic masculinity, while others were mad that the film wasn’t as violent as they had hoped it would be. Any way you spin it, it has to be said that Vanga really milked the climate around his third directorial venture. He put loads of digestible and stylized violence in the movie and a great cast, all in a sentimental story about the strained bond between a father and son. He did so with just enough chutzpah to provoke the audience and the critics alike. Result: a huge blockbuster. People didn’t actually get a clear sense of what the movie wanted to say exactly. One of my friends said the movie is a remake of Hamlet, but here, Hamlet’s father isn’t dead but is simply absent. That is one high-falutin way to put it, but there is this whole extended family revenge saga in the second half of the film that is baffling to understand fully. The Singh family, written by Vanga, is surely not cut out of the fabric of the regular Indian family tree. To understand the latter half of Animal, one has to delve deep into the Singh family tree and see the different characters and their backstories.


Rajdheer Dodamal Singh And His Brothers

The story’s root is in Punjab, where Rajdheer grew up with his two brothers. The eldest was Dalbir Dodamal Singh, and he was the least ambitious of them all. He stayed back while Rajdheer and the third brother left the ancestral home to shift to Delhi to set up Swastik Steel, which later became the bone that the dogs were going to fight over. If Rajdheer’s side of the story is to be believed, then his brother was a greedy man, and Rajdheer had to expel him from the company. That made him take his wife and kid and settle abroad, where he self-immolated because he couldn’t accept the dent in his reputation. The seed of violence was planted, and his son grew up to correct the wrongs.


Balbir Singh And His Banished Brother

The generational violence seeped into the second generation. Rajdheer built an empire, taking Swastik Steel to new heights, and the mantle was passed to his son Balbir. Balbir was aware that he had a cousin, but when he came to ask for his share of the wealth, Balbir behaved as he saw fit. He was of the opinion that his cousin had no right to Swastik Steel, and the strain continued. Balbir’s cousin converted from Sikhism to Islam and married multiple women. Abrar Haque was one of his sons, and he seemed to have taken a vow to kill Balbir for the way he had treated his father.


Ranvijay Singh And Abrar Haque

The third generation consists of Ranvijay, Balbir’s son, and Abrar, one of Balbir’s cousins’ sons. A lot can be said about Ranvijay’s violent temperament, but the real animal in the movie was Abrar. A mute villain who had seen his grandfather’s death and had vowed to vanquish the Singh family. Abrar wanted absolute dissolution, and the way he wanted to bring it about was to find a mole in the Singh family so that Balbir could be assassinated. Without Balbir, who had given practically his whole life to it, the empire would fall, or so Abrar thought. He didn’t account for the fact that Ranvijay was quite an animal himself, and he would go to any length to kill the man who wanted to assassinate his great-father.

Much of the plot of the film emerges from the fact that Ranvijay finds that his brother-in-law was the mole in the family, and he was working with Abrar’s men. Ranvijay killed his brother-in-law and was almost killed by Abrar’s men. But he emerged stronger, overcoming all of the traps set by Abrar and his men, and reached Turkey to kill Abrar. A sequel is on the cards, even though Ranvijay killed Abrar. One mustn’t forget that Abrar had many brothers who are still alive. A far-fetched plan was already in motion when Ranvijay killed Abrar. Abrar had made his brother Aziz have plastic surgery to make him look exactly like Ranvijay. The same blood flows through their veins, so there is bound to be similarity, and Aziz is shown to be the devil reincarnate who now resembles Ranvijay completely. Nobody could have known if Aziz had replaced Ranvijay after killing him, but Ranvijay managed to thwart Abrar’s plan. Aziz the butcher is gearing up to take the fight to Ranvijay, and the sequel will probably have the fight to settle all fights. In the beginning of the movie, an old Ranvijay was shown to be living, but who is to say that it isn’t Aziz? Vanga has a yarn to spin, and time will tell if he spins a good one in Animal Park.


Ranvijay’s Family And His Cousins

Ranvijay wasn’t the only child Balbir had. There were his two sisters, Reet and Roop. They didn’t have much to do with the business, but the men they married were of extreme importance to Ranvijay. Reet had married a bad apple who turned out to be a traitor. Ranvijay married Geetanjali and had a family of his own. He has one son and a daughter. How much of a part they’ll come to play in Animal Park is pure conjecture at this point, but they might become a vulnerability for Ranvijay when Aziz tracks them down. Lastly, Ranvijay had the help of Dalbir’s grandsons from Punjab, who helped Ranvijay immensely in fighting Abrar.


Ayush Awasthi
Ayush Awasthi
Ayush is a perpetual dreamer, constantly dreaming of perfect cinematic shots and hoping he can create one of his own someday.


 

 

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