Kartik Bhardwaj

Why should one go to school? If you ask the students of Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, they might answer: to play cricket with their headmaster, or to enjoy kheer in the midday meal. For girl students, it means a 5k deposit in their parents’ bank accounts, a government incentive for women empowerment (the money is then used by parents to pay for the girl’s dowry). But then one of the female students states she doesn’t want to study anymore. She would rather marry her hip-hop dancer boyfriend. When a teacher tries to convince the girl, she declares: It’s my choice. It’s an amusing conundrum. What is actually the real purpose of education? It’s a question that the Prime Video series Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, from the house of Posham Pa Pictures (Kaala Paani, Maamla Legal Hai), keeps circling back to. Is it for these kids–most of them who come from marginalised backgrounds–to make money and pull their families out of poverty? Because that they can do by network marketing or working at a local tobacco factory. What can really a school provide them? When the boyfriend doesn’t come to pick her up, the above-mentioned girl takes up a cycle and rides on her own. She doesn’t have to wait for anybody anymore. Education gives independence.

Female solidarity is not reduced to a mere aesthetic in System, a legal-thriller fronted by powerhouse talents Sonakshi Sinha and Jyotika. Their first meet is more of a casual glance at each other. They are standing in front of a mirror in the ladies’ room, touching up. Sonakshi in a lawyer’s black overalls and Jyotika in a plain salwar kameez. Without resorting to any dialogue, Jyotika points at Sonakshi’s creased barrister-bands. The latter smoothens them. Jyotika gives a cordial smile and leaves.

Saif Ali Khan can’t scream. No, it’s not a physical impairment. What I mean is that he can’t scream for screen, the way a Hindi film hero screams to the heavens after a loved one is killed. He can’t seem to be able to do it convincingly, atleast not in the recently released OTT film Kartavya, a heartland crime-thriller cut from the same cloth as a Kohrra or a Paatal Lok. In a situation, around dead foes and a friend, Saif lets out a wail like he just stumbled upon the instruction from a cue card. It’s sudden, loud and has neither agony nor vengeance. It seems like a call for help.

There was a time when truth was stranger than fiction. Now fiction has become stronger, loud and all pervasive. The absolute truth is averse, dirty and disturbing. So, truth is now reduced to a perspective. You can choose your own version, one that makes you feel good about yourself, your thought process, your ideology. Helps you sleep at night. It’s an apple which is half-rotten but you can enjoy eating the good side. The real truth actually lies in an unsettling feeling in your bones. That something is not right. From the Bollywood propaganda machinery comes another ‘truth-exposer’. The subject of tonight’s debate aka movie is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the RSS, the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Every accusation against the RSS will be answered with table-thumping arguments, cherry-picking, sentimental background music and goalpost shifting. A character will shout, “The truth will and shall prevail!”

Doing bad acting good is an acquired art. Observe Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019). In it, the actor plays a fading Hollywood star who has been reduced to playing villains for TV Westerns. While shooting for one of them, he is seen playing an antagonist who has kidnapped a little girl. The scene is campy and DiCaprio acts like an actor who confuses intensity for interiority. He improvises, throws the young girl (who was sitting on his lap all this while) on the floor. The director says bravo. The eight-year-old whispers in his ear that it was the greatest acting she had seen in her entire life. DiCaprio’s eyes well-up, he looks around and then at the ceiling. Even in life he is showcasing that emotion like an actor in a melodrama. But the whole scene gives you two feelings. You laugh at the guy but then you feel sorry for him.

Credit where it’s due. At a time when the Bollywood movie-goer can only choose between a macho-misogynistic actioner or a propaganda-piece posing as a truth- exposé, Ek Din comes as a sweet respite. It’s warm, fuzzy and feels like sipping on a marshmallow-dipped hot chocolate after you have had enough of that tongue-reddening spice. But the taste doesn’t stay consistent, it oscillates between bland and saccharine. The film gets messy, clumsy and once the love-story gap is filled it starts to overstay its welcome.