Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a South African term given by Nelson Mandela, which means humanity. In the context of the film directed by Pushkar Shrotri. It does not literally connect with the narrative, but is broadly relevant.

Instead, the individual elements split the film into two halves, almost abandoning the premise it started with midway, just returning to scratch the surface in the final 15 minutes.

The first half of the film introduces us to a small town school in a desperate situation. The school has about 15 students, and is about to be closed down for poor attendance. There is a quick need to raise the number up to 35. Though the teacher (Sathye) is enthusiastic, and the students are benefitting from the school, there is no support from villagers and Sarpanch (Shende). A sudden emergency demands for the teacher to go away for a week or so, and he puts Gauri (Sankpal) in charge. In order to get the muchneeded attendance, Gauri decides to go after Abdul (Padhye), a student working at his uncle’s eatery in Sangli (a city). This makes things more complicated than what she bargained for.
Since the film was a realistic portrayal of a teacher’s efforts to get the required attendance, there were limited dramatic possibilities. The track of Gauri in the second half acts as a device to keep things moving, although it hijacks the idea developed by the set up completely, and you get a feeling that it’s a different film altogether. Many of the prominent characters in the first half get sidetracked, and greater concern of the ‘education for all’ (sarv shiksha abhiyan) is substituted by a simplistic adventure.

When films deal with real world problems, a real world detailing is expected. For example, the youngest kids in class seem about 10 years old and Gauri, possibly the oldest, mentions that she will appear for tenth standard exam next year. Even in small schools such as these, where a single teacher teaches all, there has to be some mechanism for teaching kids of different age groups. When half the film takes place in a classroom, isn’t it a detail worth exploring?

The mann ki baat signifies that the film period is after 2014 or may be 2017 then why can't it have a basic communication needs over there. The film takes place in the present time when a phone is not a very rare commodity. We know that the village sarpanch and the teacher have cell phones. Even if we don’t consider cellphones, are there no other phones in the village, even landlines? Would a girl of Gauri’s age, smart enough to leave town on her own mission, be unaware of some sort of contact number for emergency? Instead of that if film could have been shown @20 years back which justifies the current scale.

As expected, the film ends on a positive note, and the community has a change of heart. One wonders if things could be so simple. The film is watchable with decent performances by the kids, and established actors like Sagar Sathye and Shashank Shende in smaller roles. The mind change if Sarpanch also looks very abrupt and does not see any flow or intense. The roles done 2 main kids Gauri and Sanket are noted.

The music by Kaushal Inamdar is excellent. The lyrics are great. Mugdha Vaishampayan (little moniter of Saregamapa little champ) has done dubut playback singing in this film which is reasonably good. Much more work is expected from her in next films. Singer Ajit Parab is also good.
There could be many tragic turns and sentimental dialogues have been added which makes impact to the film. Gauri can take some basic details from her friend rather tha searching Abdul blindly in the big city. Also Abdul's brilliancy and giving answers to school officer does not justify his comeback to school.

The director tries to give many messages in one film including humanity, sarv shiksha abhiyan, school saving efforts which actually reduces the flair of film as a whole.
I guess, this is the first film direction by Pushkar and good attempt for which which I will give him 3 stars out of 5.

- Mandar Kulkarni
17 Sep. 2017

(Note: There are few references taken while writing this but there is enough material of my own!!!)