Gulaal (gulal, Crimson) is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language political drama film directed by Anurag Kashyap, starring Raj Singh Chaudhary, Kay Kay Menon, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal, Ayesha Mohan, Jesse Randhawa, Piyush Mishra and Aditya Srivastava.

The plot is provided by student politics of a university and a fictitious secessionist movement consisting of former Rajput leaders who have become present-day elite.

Gulaal was initially stalled due to financial concerns but was later released with support from Zee Limelight.

[1][2] In the fictional town of Rajpur, Dilip (Raj Singh Chaudhary), a law student who is a Rajput from Bikaner, secures housing in an old, run-down British-era pub.

Dukey convinces Ransa to contest the General Secretary elections at the university, where his opponent is Kiran, his (out-of-wedlock) half-sister.

Ransa is kidnapped by Kiran's brother Karan (Aditya Srivastava), who asks him to withdraw from the elections.

Karan reveals his masterplan: once Dukey Banna is eliminated, the Rajputana movement will choose him as their leader and legitimize him.

The film ends with Karan as the head of the Rajputana movement, while Kiran sheds a tear as one of the loyal faithful.

Production on Gulaal began in 2001, when Anurag Kashyap was listening to songs from Pyaasa and his film Paanch was struggling with censors.

Inspired by Mohammad Rafi songs from Pyaasa ("Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai") and Zeenat ("Haye re duniya") the film is a dedication to Sahir Ludhianvi, the lyricist of the song and all other poets who had a vision of India.

[4] The first trailer was released with the director's other movie Dev D. Gulaal received positive reviews from critics.

[5] Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave it three stars and said that "fantastically watchable film that scores high on moments.