2020, Marathi, Netflix, 7.2/10 IMDB, Directed by Chaitanya Tamhane
A compendium of a young boy’s misplaced tenacity, who is ‘lost’ in the process of mastering an art form, as he finds himself trapped in a vicious routine of attempting to become the best. A hard hitting crux, a universal prototype of the ‘lacklustre-beings’ who are pulverized in the race to outshine.
My mind was making a list of success sutras and thantras I had been advised all my life. Deep down I knew I haven’t done it all to its prescribed perfection, as it seemed humanly impossible at any age. I was in awe to see the lead character Sharad Nerulkar following each one of those to a ‘T’, onscreen. He was attempting to make it big in the classical vocal world- a dream that had been thrusted upon, by his father. I was proud of him as he was my own and wished to see him succeed before the film’s end credits rolled.
Sharad’s dad had tried to channelize his son from young, to help him cut a niche for himself in the vocal world. Now that Sharad’s father is not alive, it is weird though to know that his father is seen a failure in Sharad’s grown-up eyes. Nevertheless, Sharad remains faithful to the path that his father had chosen for him. But the answer to my query, was beautifully illustrated in the screenplay that followed.
When Sharad holds possession of the rare audio tapes of his guru Vinayak Pradhan’s mentor, Sindhubaai, who was called Maai, we as viewers believe that the advices of maai, is going to be the turning point in his ‘to -be’ flourishing musical career. The voice is mesmerizing and seems an answer to all the metaphysical queries of any musical being. The words and the voice, soothes Sharad’s pain of his failures and he is hooked to the tapes as an abandoned baby to a comforter.
After a while I was puzzled, if Maai’s pearls of wisdom were, way too philosophical that transcended Sharad to a world that is different from his. Competitive world often demands rational tactics to have few head turned towards oneself, let alone become noteworthy. His guru subtly hinting a feedback on Sharad’s attempt of composing a new tune by himself, doesn’t provoke him and at the same time he is not keen on analyzing on the feedback either. At one instance, he hears Maai’s voice on the tape, uttering words to comfort him, pertaining to his present dilemmas and that is when the director concurs with the viewer’s confusion to reveal that Sharad might have started to hallucinate. Sharad quickly decides to part with the tapes, but it was already too late, I thought, as he was in his mid-thirties by then.
The film is universal in the sense that, it relates each one of us to the ‘success battle’ phenomena be it any given field. Losing the battle and settling for a mediocre life should be a familiar routine in every household. But the film left me with a couple of sleepless nights as I was dwelling on the intentions of the maker of the film.
On discussion about the film with few others, I was surprised that the film had jolted the morale of some of the people who were already successful in their respective careers. The film had kindled some serious thought process in them to a point where they ended up evaluating the choices they had made in their lives. I saw it as the strength of the film. It left the viewers have some serious introspection. On further discussion with few others, the essence of the film seemed to also touch upon the intangible factor as well call it in India, ‘Adrishta’ the self-explanatory word, ‘a drishta’ meaning, ‘can’t be seen’. It’s the version of the right time, right place, right people theory, often denoted by the laymen as ‘Luck’.
Sharad’s conversation with the critic when he is in his 20’s, had some conflicting facts to be taken a call on, to shape his career. The story would have been a completely different one, had Sharad rationalized his approach and tried to see ‘past’ the demigod Maai’s trance voice. I found myself arguing that, Sharad’s instinct should have led him to do a honest self-assessment. If he had dug deep, he might have even analyzed whether the passion to be a singer was his own or was a borrowed dream. Even if my thoughts sounded a little too harsh, I counter argued, he should have evaluated his ability, weighing it from an outsider’s perspective. I was even convinced, that the gurukul era is long gone now but there are few noble humans like Sharad, who let themselves get entangled in the selfless ‘Guru-Seva’ and forget to emancipate their own soul, free to choose what it desired.
Success is such a relative term and there are many such Sharads around us in our daily life who doesn’t know what it takes to be successful, as most of them are mimicking the dreams of others and not theirs, probably.
I am often worried for the ‘year-long’ toil of the reality show contenders. Are the children being guillotined for the dreams of their parents and gurus? How many of these contenders would want to continue music as their main career and if they do choose to, how many are successful? The film has a similar such subplot of Sharad following the rural contender on a reality show, who starts of singing classical songs when she enters the competition and ends up singing sexy numbers. But the director is conscious to respect each individual’s decision, on how each one wants to be known to the world and hence Sharad is not seen one bit judgemental. The same goes to his reaction when he sees the huge fan following of his peer and compares it with his own.
The maker’s choice not to make the character react profusely at any point, other than the few jumps to a thumping music towards the end, shows the meticulous scripting in keeping the character, a non-dynamic one throughout. This is the primary reason for the character being what he is in his 40’s as well. The camerawork and its angles in the opening scene, where it carries the point of view of the spectator and inches to narrows down to the tumburi person, to tell the story of ‘the disciple’, is a signature one of the director, I guess. And the snail-paced camera movement from behind Sharad’s back, in perfect sync to the imperfect tunes of his, during the performance which is apparently his last on stage, compliments the mood of the scene perfectly. It is right after this scene, that the character chooses to see from within, to evaluate himself and ironically, we are only seeing his back with his head drooping low and not his face. A sheer masterclass from the team.
How can I end without mentioning those ‘lost eyes. of Aditya Modak who plays the lead role of Sharad. Those eyes never digressed for a moment from communicating those inner most fragile emotions promptly to the audience. Those yearning eyes towards the curtain fall, when the boy with a tiny tumburi sings on the metro, ‘I sowed a tamarind seed in the edge of a well and the tree sprouts fish’, it wrenched my heart. I saw my daughter in those eyes, I saw her fear of losing. The same failure I see on the faces of those tiny hearts on the traumatizing reality shows. May god be with those beings who did not create history, for not all are makers of history.
The film’s success is evident in the non-cohesive ranting of mine.
A must watch.