The title of Assamese film director Jahnu Barua‘s new Hindi film Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara suggests that it is about the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, implying a nationalist theme, a film dealing with the politics of Nathuram Godse’s murdering of Gandhi However, although the historic event of the assassination of Gandhi in 1949 and its relevance in contemporary India is an important strand in the narrative, Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara is about an aged person suffering from a mentally debilitating disease and the impact of his illness on the people who care for him. In many ways the theme is very similar to that of 15 Park Avenue, centered on a person trapped in a delusional world while his family helplessly watches him disintegrate emotionally, mentally and physically.

The normalcy of this happy family is soon shattered. As he ages, Professor Chaudhury begins to experience bouts of forgetfulness. He starts off by going to the wrong class in his college; eventually forgetting significant events in his life -- his retirement and his wife’s death. Initially these signs of absent-mindedness are perceived by everyone as a part of the normal aging process. With time, his short term memories fade and a hidden trauma from his childhood emerges and takes control of his actions. He believes that he accidentally murdered Mahatma Gandhi back in 1930 and his guilt ridden brain begins to erode his sanity little by little. Soon he loses all touch with reality and begins to believe that his home is a prison and is being kept captive by his children who are his jailors. His helpless children don’t know how to deal with his increasingly erratic behavior. His younger son doesn’t want to take responsibility for a mentally sick parent and wants him put away in an asylum, his older son is busy with his life in the US, while Trisha is desperate to find a cure and nurse her father back to sanity. The main focus of the film is on a highly educated, principled and dignified man’s descent into paranoid behavior that destroys his entire personality and the frantic efforts of his daughter to bring him back from this black hole his disintegrating mental state spirals him into. 

As Trisha seeks help from doctors and psychotherapists, various medical terms are given as possible explanations for this illness –Alzheimer’s, paranoia, schizophrenia, dementia, none of which have a real cure. However, here the film seems to falter. After starting to explore ways of dealing with this illness, and the ramifications on the relationships between father and children, framed by critiques of the hypocrisies and prejudices that rule social relationships and stigmatize mental ailments; the director decides to tie this story to his own vision of contemporary India. The Professor’s constant denial ‘Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara’ is rooted back in an era Gandhi, the Father of the newly independent nation, was killed and tied to a traumatic event in the Professor’s life as an eight year old child. Barua uses Professor Chaudhury’s delusional rants as a vehicle to assert that when Gandhi died, the values he had dedicated his life to, also died with him. In a way this is reminiscent of Rang de Basanti. Here too we are presented with a contemporary India where the sacrifice of those who gave their lives for the nation have been forgotten, or at best kept fossilized in the form of statues, stamps, or names of streets. At the conclusion, the director ends with a statement from the suddenly lucid Professor Chaudhury that each one of us is responsible for murdering Gandhi, and it is our responsibility to undo this crime by keeping his ideals alive. 

The strength of the film lies in its sensitive depiction of the predicament many young people find themselves in trying to juggle their lives and careers as well as take care of aged and infirm parents, and Anupam Kher’s spectacular rendering of aging and gradual descent into dementia. Two decades after his debut performance (at the age of 28) as the 65 year old bereaved father in Saaransh (1985), Kher, who has since played every possible character in every possible genre of films, comes up with another truly brilliant performance. The sensitivity and dignity with which he brings to frightening reality the paranoia and the inner anguish of this tormented soul is remarkable. The fact that he has also produced the film, which is not likely to become a huge commercial success, indicates Kher’s commitment to good cinema, and one can forgive his frequent forays into hamming and inconsequential roles in commercial films just for one performance like this.

Urmila Matondkar is also very good as the anguished daughter who has to go through considerable personal sacrifice because of her responsibility towards her father. Urmila has come a long way since her Tanha Tanha gyrations of the Rangeela (1995) days that were her trademark for a long time. Rajat Kapur and Addy as her brothers lend conviction to their parts. The rest of the cast is adequate in their brief roles, including Parvin Dabas, Prem Chopra, Raju Kher, Divya Jagdale and Vishwaas Pandya. Boman Irani is completely over-the-top and over-theatrical in this largely realistic film. The ubiquitous Waheeda Rehman is as graceful as always in a brief role that also showcases her real-life commitment to the NGO Pratham.

Jahnu Barua, the winner of several National awards and the recipient of a Padmashree, is obviously a consummate filmmaker who can tell a sensitive story like this with great empathy, as long as the focus stays on the emotional appeal of the narrative. It is also a technically flawless film, with beautiful cinematography by Raaj A Chakarvarthy, meaningful dialogues by screenplay writer Sanjay Chauhan and a melodious background score by Bappi Lahiri. Of particular significance is the evocative use of the ocean as a metaphor of a greater reality that has the ability to humble arrogance and pride and lead one to move outside the realm of the mundane. The ocean becomes a larger entity that engenders a sense of self-realization to those who have the ability to hear its voice. 

On the whole, Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara may not be a commercial success, but will be definitely appreciated as a thought provoking film that raises pertinent questions on many issues. It addresses the absence of an adequate support system or healthcare system to deal with mental, physical and social problems faced by geriatrics; criticizes ignorance that leads to prejudices and stigmas about mental illnesses: empathizes with the debilitating effect of diseases like Alzeimers on the victim and the trauma experienced by those that care for her or him. These issues are dealt with sensitivity and compassion. Barua shows us various facets of the tragedy an ordinary family faces as they try to cope with an extraordinary situation. Even as he exposes the negative traits in humans that emerge in adversity, he is not judgmental of any of the characters, who are no more than victims of circumstances. He explores the fear and uncertainty that a victim of mental diseases goes through and the trauma and helplessness of those that care for him fighting a losing battle against ailments that really have no cure and don’t have a support system where they can draw sustenance from.

I feel that the film would have been far more effective had it concentrated on the relationship between the father and the children. I feel that Barua has neutralized the impact of this frightening eventuality that any one of us can face at any time, by turning it into a morality play on the concept of a dead nationalism. Barua’s statements about the death of moral courage, of conscience, honesty, non-violence, tolerance, and the sterile and inhuman rat race for material success that contemporary India has turned into are valid and poignant truths of the global power that modern India is striving for. But did he really have to communicate this to us in an orchestrated and melodramatic Bollywood style court room drama aimed at exorcizing Professor Chaudhury’s misguided guilt and bring him back to sanity? The sermonizing and didactic tone and the implausibility of the conclusion are the only flaws in what could otherwise have been a classic story.