Cinemaah

Boy Wonder


I Am Kalam, telling the story of a little boy who wants to study is well meaning and has an utterly endearing lead actor in Harsh Mayar.

Nila Nadhav Panda’s film, winning accolades for his set-in-Rajasthan film at festivals, has its heart in place, but may not be a box-office winner, simply because it tends to be a bit preachy, but then again why should the message of education for all not be reiterated, especially in a country that takes child labour so casually?

Chhotu works with a kind dhaba owner Bhati (Gulshan Grover), so that he can support his family. Inspired by a TV story about former president APJ Abdul Kalam and his improverished childhood, he decides to call himself Kalam.

The boy befriends Ranvijay (Hussan Saad), the son of the erstwhile Maharaja (Sanjay Chauhan) of the area, despite their differences in class and status and charms a nice Frenchwoman Lucie (Beatrice Ordeix). But Chhotu’s dreams are not all that easy to accomplish, yet he is determined to better himself and attempts to make his way to Delhi.

The plot, reminiscent of Ab Dilli Dur Nahin and Naunihal, the film is inspiring, has its high moments and a National Award-winning performance by Harsh Mayar.

The Common Man Awakens


Many Hollywood films have been based on TV serials, and Bollywood attempted one – Khichdi—with limited success.  It hasn’t caught on as a trend though.  Not having seen the popular TV series, there is no way to comment on how the film Chala Mussaddi Office Office compares with it. The film, like the series is about a common man, Mussaddi Lal Tripathi’s (Pankaj Kapur) struggles with a sluggish and corrupt bureaucracy.

The idea, though done before, has potential, particularly because there is an anti-corruption wave in the country.  Rajiv Mehra’s film, like the TV series, takes a satirical or farcical approach. However, the plot doesn’t have enough meat to be spread over a full length feature. The TV-like device of having the same actors play different characters also does not quite work.

It takes a very long time to come to the point, and the initial portions of retired school teacher Mussaddi losing his wife, does not set the mood for the rest of the film. He goes with his unemployed and disgruntled son Bunty (Gaurav Kapoor) for a pilgrimage to immerse his wife’s ashes in the Ganges, and finds out, on his return that he has been declared dead and his pension discontinued.
His pleas to the bunch of rapacious bureaucrats (played by Manoj Pahwa, Deven Bhojani, Hemant Pandey, Sanjay Mishra and Asawari Joshi), go unheeded. They refuse to believe he is alive.  The story perhaps needed a darker, more ‘absurdist’ treatment, than this easily played out broad farce. 

Turning the bureaucrats into caricatures – like the woman who spends her days at the office rolling papads—does not serve any purpose. The chilling truth is that a common man could very well go through a similar ordeal, even while dealing with serious bureaucrats, because in their line of duty, the do tend to become apathetic towards the public, not to mention corrupt.

The tragic-comedy lies in the fact that our system allows for this kind of functioning. The law offers no support, and only the media (conspicuous by its absence)  is sometimes helpful.

The film remains at the level of mildly amusing, while it could have been deeply affecting—almost everyone would have at least one brush with the bureaucracy to be able to identify with Mussaddi’s plight.   Except for Pankaj Kapur’s consistently affecting performance, there’s not much going for the film.