Hey Ram (Oh Ram) is a 2000 Indian historical epic drama written, directed and produced (together with his brother Chandrahasan) by Kamal Haasan. Filmed simultaneously in Hindi and Tamil, it is scored by famous composer Ilaiyaraaja.
In 1946, archeologist Saket Ram (Kamal Haasan) returns home to Calcutta and his beloved wife Aparna (Rani Mukherji). However, riots relating to The Partition of India break out in the city soon afterwards, and Saket is held hostage by a group of Muslim rioters who rape and kill Aparna. An angry, inconsolable Saket meets Hindu militant Shriram Abhyankar (Atul Kulkarni), who offers him the chance to join his militia and tells him the name of the man responsible for the riots: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Naseeruddin Shah). In his rage, Saket Ram vows to kill him.
Other major characters in the story include Amjad Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), a Muslim friend and colleague of Saket's, and Mythili (Vasundhara Das), Saket's second wife following Aparna's death.
Clocking in at a hefty 210 minutes, Hey Ram was acclaimed critically and commercially, with it being India's official submission to the Academy Awards (though it was not nominated).
Hey Ram displays examples of the following tropes:
- The '40s: The main plot of the film is set from 1946, opening with Saket working on Mohenjodaro, to 1948, when Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated.
- The '90s: The present-day Framing Device is set in 1999.
- Arranged Marriage: Saket's family back in Thanjuvar want him to be married to a Tamil woman, not being aware of his marriage to Aparna. While he initially doesn't care, saying he will happily be disowned by them if it means he can live with Aparna in Calcutta, he returns to Thanjuvar following her death, with his marriage to Mythili being arranged by the family patriarch.
- The Cameo: Tushar Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, is seen at Saket's funeral.
- Double-Meaning Title: Hey Ram not only refers to protagonist Saket Ram, but the words are also the purported last words of Gandhi before his death.
- Framing Device: The story is framed by an 89-year-old Saket lying on his deathbed as he thinks about the events of his life, along with his doctor and grandson.
- Tempting Fate: When Wheeler orders Saket and Amjad to stop work on the site in Larkana, Saket calms down an annoyed Amjad saying that they will return to the site soon, given that it has stood for 5000 years and isn't going anywhere. Larkana would go to Pakistan after Partition, and neither Ram nor Amjad will return there.
- Unreliable Narrator: Invoked by Saket Jr., who says that one could never tell fantasy from reality while listening to his grandfather's stories, and that his next novel, based on one of those stories, cannot be clearly classified as a biography or fiction. Given that the story is framed as Saket's memories of his life, it is also unclear how much of his memories reflect the accurate truth and how much are him looking back in hindsight.