My take on the ending of the Movie Guru (2007)

Mani ratnam desnt pass judgement on his character through his movies. People who’ve seen his master pieces like Nayagan and Iruvar, will know that he states facts brilliantly and leaves the judgement of whether the character was good or bad to the audiences’ imagination.

For Example, in Nayagan he portrays the protagonist in positive shades at various points throughout the movie. Yet, it doest amount to, the director approving the deeds of the character. He makes his disapproval, subtly, by running a parallel plot of the protagonists interactions with his daughter. In yet another master stroke, the director portrays the protagonist getting killed. The killer happens to be the son of a ruthless cop killed by the protagonist. One leaves the movie with contradicting judgments on the protagosist.

Iruvar too doest pass any kind of judgment on its protagonists Anandam or Tamizchelvam. Its states facts white and grey, and the movie ends on a philosophical note.


Audience seasoned to this non judgmental treatment fail to understand Guru. They feel that mani has broken his style and approves of Gurukant Desai’s deeds. I feel it is completely wrong to assume so. Guru is a take on the life and times of Dhirubhai Ambani, just like Nayagan and Iruvar. It is in this light that the climax court scene in Guru becomes very crucial. The fact is Dhirubhai Ambani did face a legal panel in the eighties and he came through that. So Guru being his story had to state that crucial happening. The scene cannot be avoided. Also it Gurukant cannot be shown as loosing in the court as Dhirubhai didn’t loose.

This given, we feel that the argument put up by Gurukant to the panel was tenuous, and unconvincing. We feel the protagonist may have been unfairly let free. We are pushed to doubt of whether the protagonist was in fact good or bad.He was a thug or a genius (taking a dialog from the movie), remains highly un-Trivial.

This is Mani’s masterstroke. Had the argument put up by Gurukant, been highly convincing, then it would have seemed that Maniratnam approving of the character. Had Guru been shown as loosing all popularity and support it would have been a biographical critique than a Maniratnam Biopic.