Andhadhun: Ending Explained (In Detail)

Sriram Raghavan’s 2018 black-comedy thriller Andhadhun sparked conversation unlike most Hindi films in the recent past. Everybody had theories about the final shot and how it altered the film. It was a rare instance of discourse being generated organically, and Raghavan’s reluctance to point theorists in a particular direction only fuelled the conversation further.

The Bones of the Plot

Akash (Ayushmann Khurrana) is a blind pianist living in Pune with aspirations of moving to London and making it big. Chance brings him and Sophie (Radhika Apte), the daughter of restaurateur Franco, together, and he becomes a performer at the lively joint. But Akash has a secret: he isn’t actually blind; the pretence betters his craft, he argues. Somewhat like a method actor who stays in character not just while the camera is rolling but also on set, in their vanity van, and at home.

During one of his sessions at the restaurant, he meets and befriends the 70s actor Pramod Sinha (Anil Dhawan), who commissions Akash for a private concert at the home he shares with his wife Simi (Tabu).

When Akash shows up at the appointed hour, Sinha is nowhere in sight but he goes through with his performance for a fretful, fidgety Simi, who seems to want nothing more than for the pianist to leave. Raghavan brings the camera around to tell us why: In one corner of the frame, we can see the legs of a bloodied body. Raghavan teases the situation out, keeping the audience, with their awareness of Akash’s perfectly adequate vision, on edge.

The Twists

Akash heads straight to the police station upon leaving the Sinha residence, only to find a familiar face there: The officer-in-charge (Manav Vij) was at the scene of the crime too, only in a state of undress that obviously suggested a relationship with Simi. Akash hurriedly changes tack, but the policeman remains suspicious. When Simi engineers another death days later just as Akash arrives on the scene, it becomes imperative for the murderer and her paramour to sort him out. Simi blinds Akash for real, who has been pretending to be blind all this while and now has no recourse available.

When he narrowly escapes an attack by the policeman in his home, he is found by a lottery saleswoman (Chhaya Kadam) and a rickshaw driver (Pawan Kumar), who take him to a clinic operated by a shady, bumbling doctor called Swami (Zakir Hussain). Akash believes he is saved, until the saviour duo and the doctor prep him for organ harvesting, causing him to use his memory of meeting the underlings earlier to convince them to spare his life. The quartet now plot to kidnap Simi, and once that is successful, they squeeze her policeman lover for a ransom. Before heading off to collect the money, Akash is double-crossed and finds himself in the same boat as Simi, who initially appears to be an ally but is actually making plans of her own.

The ransom collection goes south, killing the policeman and the rickshaw driver, and Simi, who has freed herself with Akash’s help, attacks Swami, only to be knocked out cold and dumped in a car boot.

Swami and Akash now make for Mumbai, with the doctor exulting in Simi being the perfect match for a foreign donor he has lined up. He plans to share some of the remuneration with Akash so the pianist can regain his eyesight, but the latter appears uneasy with this solution.

The Ending

Two years later, Akash bumps into Sophie in Europe and fills her in on the rest of the story: Swami stopped the car because of noises coming from the boot, and in opening the boot, paid with his life. Simi, now conscious again, took the wheel, and kicked Akash out of the car, making for Mumbai, before turning around and deciding to kill him. A leaping rabbit shot at by a farmer flew across her field of vision, causing her to lose control of the car, which crashed and exploded, killing her.

While this is Akash’s version of events for Sophie, the way he knocks aside a can on the street at the end of the film renders it unlikely. Being blind, Akash could not have possibly known of Simi having turned the car around with the intention of killing him, much less about the leaping rabbit. The more likely theory, thus, is that Akash concurred with Swami’s suggestion to sacrifice Simi, and spun a new web of lies for Sophie so he could come off as the bigger person.