Name: Dug Dug
Genre: Comedy, Mystery
Duration: 1 h 45 min
Rating: 7.0
Cast: Altaf Khan, Ritwik Pareek

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After a villager dies in a crash, his motorcycle mysteriously reappears at the accident site despite being held in a police station. As locals begin to see it as divine and capable of granting wishes, a belief system forms around offerings and rituals.

Dug Dug

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The film is a clever and sharply observed satire on the commercialisation of faith and belief. Set in Rajasthan, the film follows the strange aftermath of a local drunkard’s (Thakur sa) death in a road accident, after which his pink and blue moped mysteriously keeps reappearing at the accident site. The mysterious event soon transforms into a wish-granting phenomenon, drawing both the poor and the wealthy in search of miracles and hope.
Concept is the hero in this promising directorial debut. The Luna and its dead owner become the central characters, which is rare for a movie. There is no lead actor or known face driving the narrative, just a subject that delightfully resonates.
What begins as curiosity and superstition slowly turns into spectacle, business and blind devotion. Director Ritwik Pareek delivers a quirky and technically confident debut that uses humour and absurdity to comment on how religion and faith get monetised and often used to influence public opinion. The film deftly captures how people buy into hope and miracles, drawn by the promise of a better future.
The movie also impresses technically, with strong cinematography, effective visual effects and a memorable musical score that enhance its offbeat tone. Editor Bijith Bala, Sound Designer Siddharth Dubey, Cinematographer Aditya S Kumar, Music by Salvage Audio Collective and Production Designer Ranjit Sin all deserve special mention for elevating the film’s distinctive atmosphere.
Relevant, entertaining and thoughtfully executed, this is a smart social satire that deserves to be seen.

You know those films that get better after you’ve finished watching them? Dug Dug is exactly that kind of film. I randomly mentioned the plot to a friend, who casually said, “You know there is a Bullet Baba Temple in Rajasthan, right?” And just like that, the film levelled up in my head. Because suddenly, this wasn’t just a quirky, slightly absurd story it was real. And that makes everything far more fascinating, and slightly more terrifying.
Written and directed by Ritwik Pareek, Dug Dug taps into one of India’s most reliable plot devices—faith: blind faith, selective faith, even convenient faith. The kind that can turn a random object into a full-blown deity if the vibes match.

The story kicks off with a man dying in a terrifying accident. His Luna is brought to a police station. But every night, the bike pulls a full main-character move—it disappears and reappears at the accident spot. Naturally, logic takes a backseat, whispers take over, and enter a baba ji, who declares that Thakur (the deceased) might just be divine. And just like that, Thakur becomes Thakur Sa, and we get a new god in town. Offerings are his favourites—bidi and alcohol (yes, alcohol)—and people start showing up with wishes like it’s a spiritual customer care centre.
As a teetotaller, I have to say, watching people pour alcohol as daan (offering) had me amused, though others might be mildly stressed. The wastage. But also, that is peak India. Because this is what we do: we hope, we pray, and we believe, sometimes a little too easily, a little too much. The film constantly walks this line where you are smiling at the absurdity but also eye-rolling a little at the antics.

And then comes the big glow-up. What starts as a small roadside shrine becomes a full-blown marble temple. Thakur Sa goes from a local legend to a state-level phenomenon. Shops pop up, trusts are formed, hospitals and a university get named after him — and, my personal favourite, a meat shop named after Thakur Sa. Inclusive and tolerant religion? We love to see that.

There are so many little moments that make this film feel rich and layered. A random brick with “Om” written on it becomes instant divine confirmation. A magician named PP Sharma, a clear wink to PC Sorcar, reminds you how thin the line is between magic and belief. And then there is this one guy who is just inflating a balloon throughout the film, from start to finish. You are sitting there thinking, this is us, right? Filling something fragile with all our hopes, waiting for the inevitable burst. Whether it bursts or not, not giving spoilers, but the metaphor came through loud and clear.
Visually, Ritwik Pareek’s film is stunning. There is a gorgeous opening highway shot, and the lighting is chef’s kiss. Even the background score is genuinely a banger. It elevates scenes, builds tension, and occasionally does more storytelling than the screenplay itself.
There are no big stars or known faces here, and that kind of works beautifully for Dug Dug. With actors such as Altaf Khan, Gaurav Soni, Yogendra Singh, and Durga Lal Saini, the film feels raw and real, like you have just walked into someone’s life. No distractions, no star baggage, just characters existing in their slightly bizarre reality.

The smallest details also shine. The film is set around 2018–19, and you catch glimpses of the pink old Rs 2,000 notes. The cops are not bulky men but real people who talk about retirement, their personal struggles, and their very human lives beneath the uniform. There is also a lovely moment where a cop’s wife adjusts her sari while watching him on TV — soft, subtle, and so real.
But here is the thing: Dug Dug really needed someone to say, “Thoda ruk jao.” Because the film loves its own story a little too much. The journey from bike to belief to full-blown religion feels stretched. The same beats repeat, and at one point, you hope for a new plot or just for the pages to be turned over. It gets indulgent, and not always in a good way.

And it is frustrating because the film has so much potential. When it finally gets to its point, it is actually quite beautiful. The climax is subtle, almost blink-and-miss, hinting at a logical explanation while still leaving space for faith. And that final shift from disbelief to quiet acceptance lands beautifully.

Backed by filmmakers such as Anurag Kashyap, Vasan Bala, Nikhil Advani, and Vikramaditya Motwane, Dug Dug clearly comes from a space that wants to tell different, rooted stories, and that is always exciting for the industry and cinephiles. The film is not perfect; it is messy, indulgent, and occasionally tests your patience. But it is also original, funny in the most unexpected ways, and deeply, unapologetically Indian.

While it is well established that truth is stranger than fiction, once faith enters the narrative and, subsequently, dominates it, things can get curiouser and curiouser. That’s how a trippy satirical tale set in Rajasthan, titled Dug Dug, unfolds. The film releases Friday.

The film, which is directed and written by Ritwik Pareek, follows the death of a man named Thakur Sa, who was drunk and driving a two-wheeler with a pink seat, in a road accident at night. The moped, which ends up in police custody and is even locked up in the jail, mysteriously keeps returning to the accident spot. In no time, the bike acquires divine status with power to fulfill the wishes of those who pray to it and offer a bottle of alcohol, one Thakur Sa’s favourite things. The accident site soon becomes a roadside shrine, thronged by devotees from far and wide.
The film’s premise might sound bizarre but there’s some truth to it. In Jodhpur is located Om Banna temple, which is dedicated to a 350cc Royal Enfield motorcycle. What makes watching this film a fascinating experience is the whimsicality, wry humour and touches of magical realism. Even as blind faith drives people to worship the garlanded bike and the roadside shrine turns into a sprawling temple, the film’s tone neither turns judgy nor preachy. Though designed as a socio-religious satire, the film does not take up the task of busting the myth or questioning the faith of followers.

The well-crafted film, which opts for pithy lines especially in the first half, is a visual delight though set in an arid landscape. While the credit for it goes to cinematographer Aditya Kumar, the smart use of pink and blue — said to be favourite colours of Thakur Sa — adds to the visual richness (the film is designed by Ranjit Singh). What compliments the visuals is the excellent soundtrack, which is composed by the group Salvage Audio Collective.
Together, the visuals and jazz-rock music add a vibrant energy to the storytelling. However, in spite of this, parts of the second half turns tedious as scenes about how the popularity of the shine keeps on growing become repetitive.
Towards the end, one elderly cop who is about to retire in a week, regrets that nothing major happened during his long stint there. It does not seem to have registered in his mind the incredulity of the road accident death that led to the birth of a new deity and a large number of followers. In India, where many surreal occurrences become a part of everyday life, Dug Dug tells the story of one such “almost-true” event.

A lone rider makes his way into the eerily empty night speeding across a remote road of Rajasthan. Shrouded in darkness, our only impression of this drunk dude is the existential crisis in the voiceover's monologue, 'Manzilen mili unhi ko jo raaste mein hain goom.'

Babbles of a stoned fool or prophetic words of a sage mind? Dug Dug lets you decide after the dangerously dizzy ride meets its crashing end right before magician P P Sharma's pulpy art poster eyes.

The Miraculous Moped and Rising Cult
Despite repeated attempts to confiscate the deceased's bike by local cops, the blue and pink Luna keeps miraculously resurfacing at the exact same spot it was first found. As the moped earns divine status, word spreads far and wide and droves of believers flock the site-turned-shrine with offerings of beer, beedi and big bucks.

Director Ritwik Pareek's debut feature film is a work of sublime vision and philosophical insight. In Dug Dug, presented by indie cinema champions Anurag Kashyap, Nikkhil Advani, Vikramaditya Motwane and Vasan Bala, Pareek reflects over the thin line between faith and foolhardiness yet steers clear of passing judgement.

Inspiration and Social Commentary
Inspired by the legend of the Bullet Baba Temple near Jodhpur, which came into being in the late 1980s after a Enfield rider was killed in an accident and his vehicle became a thing of worship, Dug Dug's Mano Ya Na Mano setting in Marwar is tailor-made for attention.

In a country where religious zeal and spiritual naivete are forever crossing paths, it's an entirely plausible scenario. Pareek is quick to seize a satire in the opportunism of priests, press, politicians and people wielding power or paisa while the cult of a two-wheeler burgeons on the strength of common man's desires and desperation.
Visuals, Sound, and Direction
Salvage Audio Collective's effervescent score elevates both Dug Dug's humour and euphoria. Its swelling momentum, symbolised in the sight of a toy seller's ever-growing balloon, threatens dire consequences in the tradition of a thriller and underscores Pareek's talent for vivid imagery.

His robust use of pink and blue in all its neon and candy-coloured glory -- be it the psychedelic opening scene, the electric celebration parades or a second half teeming with montages capturing the moped's widespread success -- convey its contrasts of magic and realism. Pareek's assured eye is apparent in his ethereal use of art wherein he blends traditional Rajasthani miniature paintings and contemporary concepts to create lyrical life metaphors.

Although his worldview is benign and hellbent on the power of manifestation, the filmmaker doesn't shy away from showing blind devotion's monetisation in the garb of progress and purity. Except his wit is more visual than voice.

Cinematography and Themes
Dug Dug may allude to the sound in a bike but it's the sights of Aditya S Kumar's hypnotic camerawork that captivate when a landscape's stoic, stark visage befitting a Western metamorphoses into the hustle bustle of a pilgrimage town.

More than character arcs, it's the cycle of conformity that interests Pareek. Just when Dug Dug appears to be caught up in musical montages, save for the cops investigating the case of the curious bike early on, he throws a curveball. And a popular saying comes to mind: Na maano toh patthar maano toh bhagwan.

One of two Indian films to premiere at the ongoing 46th Toronto International Film Festival, Dug Dug, written and directed by debutant Ritwik Pareek, is a strikingly original, wonderfully inventive satire of faith-fuelled frenzy and its fallouts. It is an independent film that the director and his sister Prerna Pareek have produced, but it is small neither in spirit nor in ambition.

Tempering an acutely sceptical tone with an unwaveringly non-judgmental approach to the theme of mass hysteria and its many manifestations in a semi-rural part of Rajasthan, the Hindi-language Dug Dug creates an immersive world in which the thin line between the bizarre and the commonplace is easily erased to deliver a confounding but catchy tale informed with wit and weight.

The Dug Dug visuals (shot by DoP Aditya S. Kumar) capture the sweep of the desert landscape, where a mirage takes next to no time to grow and imprint itself on the minds of people all too willing to give in to beliefs that promise them instant salvation amid the never-ending hardships of their dead-end lives.

Dug Dug rests on a simple premise: faith imprisons as much as it liberates. It all depends on what you make of it. The film does not seek to convince you one way or another - it simply lets the world it inhabits speak its own truth in the way that is best suited to it.
People who seek succour from the perils of a bleak present and an uncertain future are sucked into the centre of a helium-filled balloon - the metaphor receives a literal rendition in the film through the recurrent image of a toy seller who continuously blows air into one of his inflatable wares - that could either explode in their face or help them float on hope.

One may quibble that Dug Dug confines itself within the immediate socio-cultural dimensions of the fervour of faith and shies away from exploring the insidious political repercussions of religion when it is used for the purpose of pushing a community into irrationality and dogma. But assessed purely for its cinematic qualities, it is a commendable achievement that heralds the advent of a young filmmaker with a sensibility entirely his own.

Dug Dug has an original score by the Salvage Audio Collective (who composed the music of Gully Boy) with vocals and lyrics by Ankur Tiwari (the music supervisor of the Zoya Akhtar-directed blockbuster). The musical soundscape is one of the film's greatest delights. It provides a perfect accompaniment for the technical dynamism that Pareek brings to bear upon the narrative.

Inspired by a real temple in Jodhpur devoted to a dead motorcycle rider, the Jaipur-born filmmaker forays into the midst of a religious myth created around an alcoholic man who loses his life in a grisly accident on his way back home late one night from a bar located off a highway.
The victim's motorbike, which appears to acquire a mind of its own and keeps escaping from a police station compound and repeatedly returning to the accident site, turns into an object of devotion and gives birth to a full-fledged cult that takes the shape of a thriving ecosystem driven by personal, social, commercial interests.

In deference to the spirit of the man who owned the two-wheeler and is believed to have merged with it after his tragic death, the local high priest ordains that the most befitting offering that could be made by the faithful to the deified motorbike, is alcohol. He also decides that blue and pink would be the colours of this new place of worship that has come up in the middle of nowhere. How much time does it take the boondocks to turn into a source of boons of all manner? In Dug Dug, very little.

The fame of the road mishap victim who has divinity thrust upon him spreads rapidly and new businesses mushroom in his name in the newfangled pilgrim town. They range from construction companies and automobile showrooms to meat shops and hair cutting salons. Of course, one can also safely presume that the phenomenon is also a windfall for liquor brands.

Dug Dug observes the emergence of a new 'religion' with a sense of incredulity and bafflement that segues into a winking acceptance of a phenomenon as it quickly takes roots and evolves into a veritable 'industry'.

Pareek employs musical montages to portray the depth and spread of the motorbike-inspired religious order and to reflect upon the various ways in which faith plays out in this country of a million mysteries. It is hard to see the influence of the films that Pareek might have grown up on, but Dug Dug definitely crafts a folksy, nautanki-style narrative that fluctuates between low-key drama and unbridled burlesque without ever losing control over its carefully put together structure.

Three local policemen, a politician (Hemant Sharma), a couple of priests, an old goatherd, an itinerant toy seller (Hariram Meena) and the wife (Priyanka Khandekar) of one of the cops (the only woman in the story - her presence impacts the film's final twist) are the people whose actions and reactions are placed within the film's whimsical, free-floating narrative that is elliptical, euphoric and exhilarating in one sweep.
The film has a cast of literally a hundred because it deals with a multitude of people who fall for the myth of the miraculous motorcycle. However, Pareek's focus is on a handful of characters - they play the parts that contribute layers to a lively commentary on how superstition and blind faith work on Indian minds and how quickly the combination of gullibility and desperation delivers people into the embrace of something that stretches credulity but yields an epochal turning point in the lives of the locals.

Apart from Thakur Lal (Altaf Khan), the drunken man who is run over by a speeding lorry under a hoarding announcing a show by a magician, the three policemen, one as listless as the other, are key elements of the plot. The oldest among them is Manfool (Durga Lal Saini) who, one would imagine, is a seasoned crime-buster. He is anything but.

The two younger cops, Pyare Lal (Gaurav Soni) and Badri (Yogendra Singh), are temperamentally poles apart. One has a healthy disregard for the madness unfolding around him; the other is more than willing to play along.

No matter who you side with - the cynical Pyare Lal or the susceptible Badri - Dug Dug is an immeasurably delightful cinematic work, a film that takes you on a deliberately paced yet robustly heady ride.


Dug Dug | Official Trailer | May 8 |Anurag Kashyap, Nikkhil Advani, Vikramaditya Motwane, Vasan Bala