Nearly a century ago today, Indian physicist Sir C. V. Raman discovered the Raman Effect, which describes “the inelastic scattering of photons by matter”. Yes, we’re quoting Wikipedia because while we’ve seen the likes of Mission Mangal (2019) and Rocketry: The Nambi Effect (2022), and pretended to understand what was going on in Oppenheimer (2023), our beautiful minds are more inclined towards a different kind of scientific temperament. Which is why, in honour of National Science Day, we’re looking back at some of our favourite scientists in Indian cinema. To be clear, we’re not interested in the serious or the scientific; ours is a quest for the truly wacky. So here’s our list of mad scientists, ranked (arbitrarily) in descending order of sanity.
How Mohan Bhargav (Shah Rukh Khan) went from the solemn NASA employee in Swades (2004) to a roguishly charming member of the Brahmānsh is anybody’s guess. But you’re lying if you say Khan’s cameo in Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva (2022) wasn’t the very best part of that film. A scientist whose code-name is … ‘Scientist’, Mohan is our introduction to the power of the āstras. When he is attacked by bad guys at the beginning of the film, Mohan is more focused on bestowing them with cool, punny nicknames. Turns out the banter is a ruse to distract the thugs so Mohan can activate the Vānarāstra and turn into “the jungle’s wiliest animal”: A monkey. With his newly-acquired powers, Mohan proceeds to give his pursuers the slip (but not without taking the time to tease them with flippant remarks). Unfortunately, he ends up being subdued (killed? We really hope not) by Junoon (Mouni Roy), but Mohan’s parting words reassure us that light will triumph over darkness. He looks gorgeous and his moves are bad-ass, bringing a hint of playfulness to a film that takes itself entirely too seriously. Fingers crossed that we get to see more of the Scientist in upcoming Brahmāstra instalments.
In Enthiran (2010), Rajinikanth plays the righteous Dr. Vaseegaran as well as his literal brainchild, Chitti. (This humanoid robot is definitely useful to keep around if you want to cheat in an examination, or need a bodyguard to protect you from creeps.) Later, Dr. Vaseegaran takes playing god a little too far when he programs human emotions into Chitti, which backfires spectacularly when the robot goes and falls in love with Dr. Vaseegaran’s girlfriend Sana (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan). There’s also the minor side-effect of Chitti turning into a merciless monster who goes on a rampage to kill his creator and destroy the city. Thankfully, Dr. Vaseegaran saves the day by shutting down Chitti and his evil robot army. But our favourite thing about this otherwise fuddy-duddy scientist is that he is always down to break out his groovy moves at any point in the film. His life’s work may have been dumped in a landfill (literally), but our guy doesn’t need too much convincing to join Sana in dancing it up to “Kilimanjaro” moments later. We love to see it.
What kind of self-respecting mad scientist isn’t working on a time machine at any given point in time? In this “uncredited remake” of the American classic Back to the Future (1985), Randhir Kapoor is Professor Anthony Gonsalves. “You didn’t tell me your grandfather was Albert Einstein,” says Bunty (Aditya Roy Kapur) to his girlfriend when she introduces him to her grandpa. Bunty follows this up with, “Do all scientists get their hair cut at the same salon?” — a rather unfair jibe given Anthony sports a snazzy grey rat’s tail that’s unlike any scientist we’ve ever seen. He proceeds to insist that the existence of a time machine makes complete sense: “If we can look into the past, we can also go to the past.” Seeing really is believing, apparently. Anthony’s excited plans to test-drive his time machine are foiled by Bunty, who hijacks the device to go back in time and save his parents’ marriage. What can we say, life’s hard out there for scientists who make time machines.
Arvind Swami’s Vishnu is a scientist who is well aware of his madness. “An obsession to see something beyond our intelligence is never a good idea,” he says. So, when Vishnu goes on a name-dropping spree (from Stanley Kubrick's “association” with moon-landing to an alien intervention in an ancient civilization), you know that he’s acquainted with how ridiculous he actually sounds. But it is also this scientist that makes Project Agni’s meandering overload of information slightly interesting. Swami doesn’t play him with outlandishness, which in hindsight, might have probably gone well with the film’s gimmicky sets (there’s a huge clock that’s supposed to make us believe that one can drift back into time for starters). He plays him with the vulnerability of a man who has lost his family to science. But in the end, when computer simulation and shapeshifting is involved, even this mad scientist can’t help the film from losing its plot.
If you get a call from someone who says, “I am you and you are me”, freaking out would be an understandable reaction. But when Selvaraghavan’s Chiranjeevi in Mark Antony (2023) gets such a call, he is euphoric. In another scene, he goes around telling people that they can now speak to the dead back when they were actually alive. The reason? Chiranjeevi has invented a time travel phone, which lets you make a phone call to anyone in the past. With the phone, he can speak to his past self, control his own death, and even find out if it was the chicken or the egg that came out first. Okay, he can’t quite do that last thing, because for you to contact someone from the past, you need to know their phone number, and lock in on a specific date and time, with only one call possible for the chosen date. Of course, like all mad scientists, Chiranjeevi invented the best thing in the world, but nothing to protect his invention. Caught in the crossfire of a gun war in a bar, he loses his life multiple times as several people use his phone to try and change the events that unfold at the bar that night. But we can rest assured that as long as the phone survives, so, too, will Chiranjeevi.
What would India’s first major superhero franchise be without its wacky scientists? First, we have “space scientist” Sanjay Mehra (Rakesh Roshan) in Koi... Mil Gaya (2003), who sets the events of the Krrish films into motion with his quest to find proof of extraterrestrial life. He sends sound signals of “Om Om Om Om” (we bet you can hear that melody now) into space in the hope that someone would one day respond. Sanjay’s scientific set-up consists of a panel with eight red buttons (all the better to play “Om Om Om Om”, you see) and a computer whose screen is divided into four quadrants displaying inscrutable numbers and shapes. After Sanjay’s tragic death, his mantle is taken on by his son Rohit (Hrithik Roshan), who goes on to invent a computer that can see the future. (Can someone ask this computer when the elusive Krrish 4 will hit our screens?) Even the villains in the Krrish franchise are super scientists, from Naseeruddin Shah’s devious Dr. Siddhant Arya to the evil geneticist Kaal (Vivek Oberoi) — a goth version of Professor X who creates a deadly virus, its antidote, and an army of human-animal mutants.
Love Story 2050 (2008) sees Boman Irani as Professor Yatinder Khanna aka Uncle Ya aka “the greatest scientist in the world”. And in case you were wondering, he has the eccentricity and shock of white hair to prove it. The sole resident of what looks like a miniature castle in the middle of neatly-manicured woods, Uncle Ya is just as capable of predicting the movements of the planets than he is of giving his nephew Karan (Harman Baweja) love advice. He never lets us forget he’s a scientist, saying things like, “Who is the one who formatted your heart’s hard disk and introduced a virus of her name?” Uncle Ya also matches kundlis (horoscopes) on the side. The whole world thought he was mad when he quit his job at NASA, but Uncle Ya has spent the last 15 years on a passion project that is, of course, a time machine. Said time machine is a giant glass orb with a control panel, where you have to type in your desired time period and location. Karan, Uncle Ya and their friends end up in Mumbai 2050: A city with flying cars, holograms, robots and towering silver skyscrapers. There’s also incredibly pristine skies and waters, and no coastal road to block Mumbai’s seaview. We wish Uncle Ya’s time machine had accounted for climate change, but we’ll forgive him. Mostly because he has a seriously cool laboratory.
With inputs from Sruthi Ganapathy Raman and Harshini SV.