Movie Review- Aarakshan

I have seen Prakash Jha grow as a director from Gangajal to Aparhan to Rajneeti. And since Jha raised the bar himself, Aarakshan disappoints a bit. I must say that only two kinds of movies thrill me: the ones that make me laugh heartily; and the ones that make me cry. Aarakshan started on a very promising note, and could have burgeoned into an intelligent and intense debate on the matter of reservation. But alas, as soon as one felt that the film was going to be differently entertaining, it lost its grip on the primary subject, and by the time the movie was in the final stages, it had become a fight between expensive private coaching classes, where education is as much a business as oil is for Arab sheikhs, and selfless and dedicated teachers like the protagonist Dr. Prabhakar Anand, played by the unequalled veteran of Hindi cinema- Amitabh Bachchan.  

The film has tried to incorporate two subjects within its fold- One, the subject of highly debatable reservation in educational institutes, and two, the subject of commercialization of education, by the way of over-priced coaching classes, and by the way of ‘self-financed’ professional colleges. While the primary theme of the film seems to be the former (going by the title), somewhere in the course of the movie, this slowly but interestingly maturing subject suddenly loses its hold and gives into trivialities. This is where the movie disappoints. I won’t write the story of the film here because the gist is what matters. I’ll simply narrate the reasons why one can watch this one:

One can watch this one for the intense character of Dr Prabhakar Anand, played extremely well by Amitabh Bachchan;  for Prakash Jha’s near-perfect direction.; for the poignant love story between Saif and Deepika, depicted  to be extremely romantic without as much as a single truly romantic scene; for Manoj Bajpai’s justice to the villainous role he played; and finally for the cute Tanvi Azmi, who despite having aged over the years appeared so charming and fresh in her role as Amitabh’s wife. Deepika Padukone looks stunningly beautiful; Saif looks strange in his studious look, with ‘chappat’ hair and orthodox glasses. There are just two songs in the movie- the first one, ‘accha lagta hai’, is a sweet, melodious number appearing early on in the movie, perhaps to emphasize the relationship between Deepika and Saif, and the other one, ‘kaun si dor kheenchein, kaun si kaatein’, a superbly sung classical by Channulal Mishra and my favorite Shreya Ghoshal. Channulal belongs to the same family as the legendary siblings- Rajan and Sajan Mishra, and has a similar bass voice. Go and watch this one, and yes, there’s nothing in it that should have provoked some of the Indian states to ban its screening. Publicity stunt, I suppose.     My rating: 2-1/2 on 5
Pic credit: Indicine.com