'Aarakshan' a Prakash Jha brand pain killer
An analysis on the recently released Prakash Jha movie Aarakshan, the article emphasis on where the celebrated director has fallen short of giving full justice to the topic.
JUST DAYS after the nationwide release of Prakash Jha’s much awaited and much noised Amitabh-Saif-Deepika movie Aarakshan, a leading national front page front page gave us the headline (read headache line): After 8 cutoff lists, DU still can’t fill up all OBC seats’. The Delhi University colleges had to bring down the cutoff percentages to as low as simply the pass percentage in some courses just because there were not sufficient OBCs of better percentages to seek admissions.
But even after bringing down the cut-offs to pass percentage level of 40 per cent, the university felt the dearth of candidates seeking admissions! Prakash Jha offers his own pain killer for the purpose. The movie ‘Aarakshan’ miraculously props up free coaching classes to elevate the Dalits, the OBCs and backwards to such a level that they are in a position to come on par on the scale of ‘ability’ with those upper class and all (supposedly) rich students who can afford high fees of the private coaching classes to secure admission.
‘Aarakshan’ shows KK coaching institute run by Manoj Vajpayee who offers the professors, salaries as high as Rs. 1 lakh a month while Amitabh-Saif-Deepika trio sweat to teach the backwards completely free of cost so much so that a day comes when KK coachings miraculously come on the verge of closure! Doesn’t all that look something like Bombaiyaa!
The problem of uplifting the backwards on the one hand is a perfect case for an unsolvable brain-teaser puzzle and add to this that wherever there have been efforts of injecting the ‘Right to Education’ Act with government fed crores of rupees, in order to gift every youngster of India whether poor or backward or Dalit or labour or farmer with a lamp of education, the efforts have simply miserably failed. The Supreme Court recently gave a judgment that Bihar government which spent Rs. 400 crores for educating the poor masses better close all such institutions since the money is simply going waste and the government’s effort has simply proved futile.
A school opened in Noida for all those who are poor be they laborers or any ones has students who have passed 5th but who do not know even the spellings of cat and rat! The need is actually not of free education to all and sundry but a desire in all and sundry to go for education and build an educated India. Lalu Prasad’s charwaha schools were only bogus institutes where teachers were earning salaries for doing nothing while students had no concern whatsoever with reading and writing. Prakash Jha feels that reservations in this country have become necessary only because most of the Dalits and backwards do not have facilities for coaching as much as the upper caste (and all supposedly rich) students have.
The private coaching classes were also cursed when HRD minister Kapil Sibal began the debate of abolishing board examination for X class students. Many analysts viewed that Kapil Sibal’s effort would bring a virtual end to the business centres called coaching classes meant for averting the fear psychosis in the hears of students against a board examination.
However, comparing Prakash Jha’s free coaching classes with the professional coaching classes, one can easily perceive that while the regular teachers teaching in schools may not be mentally well equipped to freely coach the students for professional courses like the IIT or equivalents, the professional coaching classes have highly capable set of lecturers to prepare intelligent students for competing for admissions to these courses.
Overlooking this fact Prakash Jha also feels that free coaching classes run by hard working teachers like Amitabh Bachchan could be a reality in the whole country! The film runs on a big dream (like a big balloon that can easily burst) ultimately fulfilled in the last scene by guest appearance of Hemal Malini who chides the chief minister and in the twinkle of an eye a big institute suddenly appears in the theatre of euphoria followed by a chorus song by all backwards that attempts to inject that euphoria into the audience who has stood up with the sigh of relief that the film is ultimately over.
The film is a bigger failure than Prakash Jha’s ‘Raajneeti’ which was nothing but a series of political murders as if politics has only murders and murders. In ‘Aarakshan’ one also feels that it was unnecessary to spend the Bollywood talents of romantic Saif Ali Khan and sexy Dipika for whom their roles in this film must have appeared too tiny.
Manoj Vajpayee is no match as a villain as opposed to the hero Amitabh Bachchan, who, to be fair to the film is more impressive than any of his old man roles played by him recently. One may jocularly also say that his acting is even more robust than in KBC!
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