Dhurandhar To Tu Yaa Main, How Crocodiles Played Metaphor And Main Character In Bollywood Films

For eons now, we as viewers have been accustomed to being enthralled by the larger-than-life spectacles that only true-blue Hindi cinema can conjure.

Bonafide heroes flying off aeroplanes, racing through waves, jumping through rings-all the occasional thrills and unimaginable action chills. But rarely-not always, but rarely-do we see a creature leaving us stunned with its main character energy.

Bejoy Nambiar's upcoming film Tu Yaa Main, led by Shanaya Kapoor and Adarsh Gourav, had a creepy feeling right from its first teaser which released last year. But the trailer flipped the game completely, and the star is not who you think it is.

A giant crocodile steals the spotlight. Interestingly, Tu Yaa Main is not the first film to make strategic use of a crocodile as a plot twist. The movie explicitly pays homage to Rekha's 1988 classic Khoon Bhari Maang, where it symbolised betrayal and rebirth in the revenge drama.

Quite recently, Dhurandhar-and many moons ago, Amitabh Bachchan's Shaan-made use of the creature, be it as a realistic element or in metaphorical dialogues. Quite clearly, crocodiles seems to have the "hero waali baat."

Tu Yaa Main: "Collab" With A Crocodile

Shanaya Kapoor and Adarsh Gourav's Tu Yaa Main is a survival thriller inspired by the 2018 Thai film The Pool. A perfect fit in the current milieu of Gen-Z professionals, Shanaya Kapoor plays Avani Shah, aka Miss Vanity, a glamorous influencer. Adarsh Gourav has the quirky name Aalaa Flowpura, a content creator from Nalasopara.

With the hints dropped from the trailer, the crocodile turns out to be the central force in this creature-feature. The insidious crocodile acts as a metaphor that propels the two leads towards a test of survival and resilience after they get trapped in a swimming pool on a trip.

Their lives and careers are all about chasing fame and ego, but in this tale, it catapults into escaping a ravenous crocodile. Unbeknownst to the "deadly" twist to their love story, this could be their "last ever collab"-and it all lies in the "grip" of the crocodile.

Dhurandhar: To Trust Or Not To Trust... A Crocodile

Who would even imagine that a crocodile could be implemented in a controversial dialogue in an espionage spy film like Dhurandhar? The film that has wreaked havoc at the box office had several viral scenes. But in this context, it is one of SP Chaudhary Aslam (Sanjay Dutt), a character based on the real-life Pakistani encounter specialist of the same name-whose dialogue is used as a trope to highlight treacherous behaviour.

The dialogue goes, "Police ke dinon mein mera ek Baloch partner tha... Hamesha bolta hoon Bade Sahab ko, magarmachh par bharosa kar sakte hain, par ek Baloch pe nahin (Back when I was in the police, I had a Baloch partner... I always tell the boss, you can trust a crocodile, but not a Baloch)."

He likens the untrustworthy nature of the Baloch people to a crocodile. He can maybe trust a crocodile, he says, but never a Baloch.

The dialogue unleashed wrath amid the Baloch community, who deemed it insulting and racist. The outrage led to the Dhurandhar makers releasing a revised version of the film on January 1,2026. After the dialogue was flagged, the newer version muted the 'Baloch' reference in this crocodile dialogue.

Khoon Bhari Maang: A "Bloody" Crocodile Fight

In Rekha's 1988 classic Khoon Bhari Maang, the crocodile far surpasses the tag of just being a plot device. Maybe that's why Tu Yaa Main also makes a direct reference, just like the upcoming feature, Khoon Bhari Maang was a revenge-meets-survival drama, laced with tinges of human greed.

The plot revolves around the unforgivable betrayal towards Aarti (Rekha) by her husband, Sanjay (Kabir Bedi). He pushes his wife into a crocodile-infested lake, to kill her and inherit her wealth. Aarti is mauled by the very nature she adores, while the film draws parallels between ferocious creatures and humans masked as villains who reside among us.

The blood-thumping climax is where the crocodile turns into a propeller of karmic retribution as Aarti gets her revenge—by letting a crocodile kill Sanjay the same way that he tried to kill Aarti.

Rekha in Khoon Bhari Maang

The first crocodile attack acts as a major defining moment in Khoon Bhari Maang, where Plain Jane Aarti comes back as the glamorous diva. The second attack serves as a turning point at the climax, where Aarti is no longer the victim. Justice is served by your royal highness, crocodile.

Shaan: The Evil Of Shakaal's Crocodile

In the 1980 film Shaan, the crocodile—which is very much a character—is a symbolic extension of Shakaal's villainous personality, famously played by Kulbhushan Kharbanda.

This high-tech crocodile den in Shakaal's sophisticated command centre plays a very crucial role in showcasing aspects of his character. The inhabitants of this crocodile pit is also serve as Shakaal's personal pets. Shakaal uses this den as an outlet for his own sadistic pleasure. He drops any henchmen who double crosses him or cheats him into the den, which in turn gives him great satisfaction.

There's even a famous dilaogue from the film, a chiling reference to his pet crocodiles, "Ajeeb janwar hai, kitna bhi khaye, bhookha hi rehta hai (Strange animal, no matter how much it eats, it stays hungry.)" It serves as a popular pop-culture meme reference today.

The other much-discussed scene in connection to the crocodile is a classic action sequence, where the cold and calculating Shakaal drops Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) in a pond filled with man-eating crocodiles. It's a death trap where the "hero" of the film combats a life-threatening animal-one he must overcome.

It symbolises the ultimate test of survival, as Amitabh Bachchan's Vijay fights and survives the crocodile pit, which is also a testament to the hero's bravery as he fights nature's most gruesome predators.

The crocodile pit under Shakaal's revolving chair is also a representation of his criminal mastermind and the power that it yields. He finds sadistic pleasure in others' misery, and the crocodile mirrors the lack of empathy within him.

There have been some other, less popular films, such as the 1988 film Ganga Jamuna Saraswati, where once again Amitabh Bachchan triumphs over the beast that is the crocodile. There was also the 2016 film Mohenjo Daro, where a CGI-based crocodile led to a bravado act.

So on and so forth-clearly, the heroes that we did not see coming.

Tu Yaa Main Poster

With Tu Yaa Main, it is once again going back to the past as it brings us to the present. The plot still stays transfixed on survival, as the question remains: Tu yaa main?

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