Guru Vishnu, Guru Brahma, Guru Maheshwara,
Guru Saakshaat ParaBrahmaa, Tasmay Shri Gurevey Namaah .....
I once had a teacher .... a woman of iron with a heart of gold and a voice of velvet.... to be frank, she was not my teacher, she was my surrogate mother, my grandmother and elder sister, all rolled in one .... Years have passed, since I last saw her, Nineteen years to be precise but I don't think there has been a single day when I have not prayed for her well-being, and that's a strange thing to say, for I am an atheist and know no God.... Her name was Mrs. Poornima Sarkar and this post of mine is dedicated to the memory of the one woman who has never left my heart....
A nation is made of it's teachers.... a nation is made of it's professors.... a nation is made of it's lecturers.... for only they can be of the most use to the nation, who can mould the fiery spirit and innocence of childhood to a beautiful dream of a different tomorrow when the today is far from perfect... and they always end up among the poorest sections of society, except of course those teachers who have made teaching into a commercial enterprise and education a commodity to be sold at the highest price to the richest bidder.... but then, we are not discussing the snakes in the garden today, today our focus is on the gardener who creates the beautiful garden and gives it his blood, his sweat and his dreams...
Indeed, there have been many interesting movies on the educational system which have captured the imagination of the people and depicted the most beautiful relationship between a teacher and a student, notable names would mean Imtihaan starring Vinod Khanna and Taare Zameen Par starring Aamir Khan but very few films have focused on the life of the teacher himself.... a few have used it wonderfully as a support base to depict other parameters of the story but the life and times of a teacher have been rarely presented.... Do Dooni Chaar is a film that looks at this aspect of the teacher's life and does so wonderfully....
It is indeed an irony of nature and a travesty of our political system that our teachers earn less than what the peons earn in Municipal offices.... they travel in buses and scooters while the students they teach graduate to the the cars within no short time.... When did it become so difficult for a Teacher to buy himself the basic requirements of his life? Is it not a matter of great concern, if just to graduate from a two-wheeler to a four-wheeler, a teacher has to be forced to be ready to sell his soul? What kind of society is this when the one who gives us weapons for our dreams is often unarmed himself / herself?
The nation needs to think and think hard.....There is a gap here, a gap which can make the most idealist of teachers break down and sell his wares to a Duryodhana, the way Drona was forced to do for the sake of his child and his love of his child.... and this is the premise that the film beautifully captures.... Drona would have never taken Eklavya's thumb, had it not been for the fact, that despite being the best teacher in the country, his wares were for sale and had been sold to the Bharata clan... Time to stop and ponder...!
Rishi Kapoor as a middle-aged professor who loves to teach is a revelation ... as I have often noted in this blog, in his heyday, his branding as a romantic hero often failed to do justice to his immense talent and it's not strange then that once he has put down the yoke of an image, that often stopped him from proving his brilliance, the man has grown rapidly, whether it's the unmarried, still-deeply-in-love, middle-aged lover boy in Delhi-6, the mature and worldly-wise father figure in Love Aaj Kal or the increasingly assertive, used to see things in his way patriarch in Patiala House or a common middle class mathematics professor, trying desperately to indulge in his favourite passion - teaching and also trying simultaneously to juggle a highly-dissatisfied family in ever-increasing inflationary times.....
It's a beautiful role and it has been performed with a panache that comes from being secure... and security comes from trust in self, faith in one's abilities and belief in the premise of the story.... lack on even one parameter is enough to destroy one but Rishi has no such qualms... he is Santosh Duggal and we never can forget that, such is his command over the role....
Neetu Singh is unbelievable.... She left the industry when I was not even conscious of her as an actress and every time I say a film of her, it only made me think of her as this beautiful, young girl who lived only to have fun.... so it was a treat to see her perform.... what a performance... I will confess, I never knew that Neetu had such a brilliant knack of seeing through.... I mean, her performance in this film as Kusum Duggal, is the complete anti-thesis of the person she actually is but who can say that after seeing a performance as towering as this one ..... We missed you Neetu .... We really did
Aditi Vasudev and Archit Krishna as the teen-aged kids of the house are just picture-perfect... the girl's frustration at her father's social status is so very common that it points out a sorry picture for our education system... a system which makes people aware of their inadequacies but does not let them take pride in their background is a sure recipe for the making of a hypocritical nation... Indeed this is where nations are made and destroyed.... and this is where India lost it's story.... There is a lot of spontaneity in Aditi's performance making her an actress to watch out for....
The boy is also a victim of the same circumstances... the only difference being that in place of becoming a hypocrite, he has become a smooth operator of the system .... I am not very confident of whether this guy will make it big because in some of the other scenes, where a little subtlety is required, the face does get emotionless but then he does have a spark and it would be nice to see how this spark turns out to be...
Akhilendra Mishra turns in a brilliant performance as the next door neighbour, Farooqui. Supriya Shukla is also well-suited for the role of the sister but I really loved the woman who plays Mrs. Farooqui and the guy who plays the role of the Inspector....
Habib Faisal has proved to be a good addition to the director's fraternity.... at a time when making picture-postcards has become an obsession with the industry and the art of directing films is almost forgotten, the movie comes as a breath of fresh air... we hope he redeems himself by such beautiful movies and the times of the masters can at least be remembered fondly, if not re-assessed!
Lastly, I will end by stating that the Shlok I invoked in the beginning gives the Guru a place greater than even God.... they are not asking to be made Gods but at least let them live like Men so that they do not have to be forced to go to the Devil .... Think about it!
Guru Saakshaat ParaBrahmaa, Tasmay Shri Gurevey Namaah .....
I once had a teacher .... a woman of iron with a heart of gold and a voice of velvet.... to be frank, she was not my teacher, she was my surrogate mother, my grandmother and elder sister, all rolled in one .... Years have passed, since I last saw her, Nineteen years to be precise but I don't think there has been a single day when I have not prayed for her well-being, and that's a strange thing to say, for I am an atheist and know no God.... Her name was Mrs. Poornima Sarkar and this post of mine is dedicated to the memory of the one woman who has never left my heart....
A nation is made of it's teachers.... a nation is made of it's professors.... a nation is made of it's lecturers.... for only they can be of the most use to the nation, who can mould the fiery spirit and innocence of childhood to a beautiful dream of a different tomorrow when the today is far from perfect... and they always end up among the poorest sections of society, except of course those teachers who have made teaching into a commercial enterprise and education a commodity to be sold at the highest price to the richest bidder.... but then, we are not discussing the snakes in the garden today, today our focus is on the gardener who creates the beautiful garden and gives it his blood, his sweat and his dreams...
Indeed, there have been many interesting movies on the educational system which have captured the imagination of the people and depicted the most beautiful relationship between a teacher and a student, notable names would mean Imtihaan starring Vinod Khanna and Taare Zameen Par starring Aamir Khan but very few films have focused on the life of the teacher himself.... a few have used it wonderfully as a support base to depict other parameters of the story but the life and times of a teacher have been rarely presented.... Do Dooni Chaar is a film that looks at this aspect of the teacher's life and does so wonderfully....
It is indeed an irony of nature and a travesty of our political system that our teachers earn less than what the peons earn in Municipal offices.... they travel in buses and scooters while the students they teach graduate to the the cars within no short time.... When did it become so difficult for a Teacher to buy himself the basic requirements of his life? Is it not a matter of great concern, if just to graduate from a two-wheeler to a four-wheeler, a teacher has to be forced to be ready to sell his soul? What kind of society is this when the one who gives us weapons for our dreams is often unarmed himself / herself?
The nation needs to think and think hard.....There is a gap here, a gap which can make the most idealist of teachers break down and sell his wares to a Duryodhana, the way Drona was forced to do for the sake of his child and his love of his child.... and this is the premise that the film beautifully captures.... Drona would have never taken Eklavya's thumb, had it not been for the fact, that despite being the best teacher in the country, his wares were for sale and had been sold to the Bharata clan... Time to stop and ponder...!
Rishi Kapoor as a middle-aged professor who loves to teach is a revelation ... as I have often noted in this blog, in his heyday, his branding as a romantic hero often failed to do justice to his immense talent and it's not strange then that once he has put down the yoke of an image, that often stopped him from proving his brilliance, the man has grown rapidly, whether it's the unmarried, still-deeply-in-love, middle-aged lover boy in Delhi-6, the mature and worldly-wise father figure in Love Aaj Kal or the increasingly assertive, used to see things in his way patriarch in Patiala House or a common middle class mathematics professor, trying desperately to indulge in his favourite passion - teaching and also trying simultaneously to juggle a highly-dissatisfied family in ever-increasing inflationary times.....
It's a beautiful role and it has been performed with a panache that comes from being secure... and security comes from trust in self, faith in one's abilities and belief in the premise of the story.... lack on even one parameter is enough to destroy one but Rishi has no such qualms... he is Santosh Duggal and we never can forget that, such is his command over the role....
Neetu Singh is unbelievable.... She left the industry when I was not even conscious of her as an actress and every time I say a film of her, it only made me think of her as this beautiful, young girl who lived only to have fun.... so it was a treat to see her perform.... what a performance... I will confess, I never knew that Neetu had such a brilliant knack of seeing through.... I mean, her performance in this film as Kusum Duggal, is the complete anti-thesis of the person she actually is but who can say that after seeing a performance as towering as this one ..... We missed you Neetu .... We really did
Aditi Vasudev and Archit Krishna as the teen-aged kids of the house are just picture-perfect... the girl's frustration at her father's social status is so very common that it points out a sorry picture for our education system... a system which makes people aware of their inadequacies but does not let them take pride in their background is a sure recipe for the making of a hypocritical nation... Indeed this is where nations are made and destroyed.... and this is where India lost it's story.... There is a lot of spontaneity in Aditi's performance making her an actress to watch out for....
The boy is also a victim of the same circumstances... the only difference being that in place of becoming a hypocrite, he has become a smooth operator of the system .... I am not very confident of whether this guy will make it big because in some of the other scenes, where a little subtlety is required, the face does get emotionless but then he does have a spark and it would be nice to see how this spark turns out to be...
Akhilendra Mishra turns in a brilliant performance as the next door neighbour, Farooqui. Supriya Shukla is also well-suited for the role of the sister but I really loved the woman who plays Mrs. Farooqui and the guy who plays the role of the Inspector....
Habib Faisal has proved to be a good addition to the director's fraternity.... at a time when making picture-postcards has become an obsession with the industry and the art of directing films is almost forgotten, the movie comes as a breath of fresh air... we hope he redeems himself by such beautiful movies and the times of the masters can at least be remembered fondly, if not re-assessed!
Lastly, I will end by stating that the Shlok I invoked in the beginning gives the Guru a place greater than even God.... they are not asking to be made Gods but at least let them live like Men so that they do not have to be forced to go to the Devil .... Think about it!
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