The criminalisation of sexual
preferences has come up for debate in recent times. Ever since the Mumbai High
Court looked at it in the Naaz Foundation case and then the Apex court in a
retrograde verdict set aside the judgement there has been a demand for
revisiting the premise. The Apex Court in the near future will hear a galaxy of
jurists on private rights, human rights and other connected issues. Meanwhile
tucked away in the narrow streets of Allahabad and from the campus of the
hallowed Aligarh University is the tale of a Professor who paid dearly for his
sexual preference with life is taken to celluloid with a sense of
responsibility and sensitivity by Hanslal Mehta in a terse tale of 120 minutes.
Are we finally moving in the right direction? Is Hindi cinema coming of age?
The timing of the film (Namamskar Nihlaniji!) is near perfect. At a time when
the decibel levels of intolerance and cultural pressures at college campuses is
increasing we have a narrative that keeps the debate low and the human element
high. It is, everything said and done, a compliment to the sagacity of our democratic
polity that one dared to make this film, that we got to see it, and thankfully
the multiplex ensured no crude statements and/or judgmental protests. Outside
of the content there is so much to salute, save, savour and respect. As is with
the content.
The story is all too well known. It recalls with fluidity the traumatic
experience of Dr. Siras (Manoj Bajpai) a professor of Marathi in the Department
of Language Studies at the University. The Professor is attacked by a set of
goons aided and abetted by is academic colleagues who are obviously
dissatisfied with he being called to head the department. And then there are
the moral policing mobs that take charge and pelt platitude. After the invasion
of his privacy the system decides to chase him. He is suspended, socially
boycotted and by the time the judicial system steps in, he walks out.
The film is more about Siras the man and the anguish. He is the poet who has a
sensitive quotient ill-suited to the times. He writes poetry enjoys his
solitariness and listens to haunting melodies of the Lata Mangeshkar (tuned by
Madan Mohan). He admits that he is an Outsider – a linguist with a different
tongue from the majority, a literate chasing the illusion that our Universities
are still platforms for debate and thereby learning, single. “Mere Jaise Log”
who are better suited to live in peace in USA, he declares but decides to
travel even farther! The saikdo shehnaiyan referred to in Raja Mehdi Ali
Khan’s: Aap ki nazron ne samjha add more melancholy than melody to his
life. He finds support from a budding journalist who is out to expose the story
of violation of the victims’ human rights Deepu Sebastain (Raj Kumar Rao).
Deepu is even told that the present generation has no time for poetry and how
at the campus today bad politics and blood have come to replace open debate and
tolerance. The protagonist makes clear that poetry is not so much words as it
is the silence and the pause. In that test Hanslal Mehta’s work is largely more
poetry than critical prose.
While Raj Kumar Rao and the rest of the cast do their very best and as usual he
is endearing, this time the film completely belongs to Bajpai. He is so good.
Bereft of mannerisms and as the sixty-year-old caught in a web unprepared both
personally and societally he takes the suffering to a plain that is rare and
piercing.
The debate will go on. Is homosexuality about being different or the right to
be. Is it about governance, law or majoritarian morality? In the meanwhile,
here is a heart touching experience of trauma and how society failed to save a
decent guy and penalised him for his sexual choice. Watch it and if nothing we
the collective stand exposed for being ever so judgmental
Rating 3.5 stars
+ Sincerity
– Hurting