The curious case of good intentions

In Hichki , Bollywood’s umpteenth “socially conscious” film — also the comeback (of sorts) film for Rani Mukerji — the causes championed are normalising Tourette syndrome, highlighting class inequality, and exposing our inherent biases. It would have been righteous of the film, and its makers, to take such a stand had its execution not been marred by unflinching irony.

As it turns out, the one moment that the film employed to goad introspection on these three ills was a scene straight out of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire . Naina (Mukerji) teaches 9F, a neglected class of poverty-stricken students at a city school. She decides to take matters in her own hands after the parents of her students fail to show up for the annual parent-teacher meeting. On the offhand suggestion of a rival teacher (played by Neeraj Kabi) that she should hold the PTA where her students and their parents live, a determined Naina sets off to the slums.

The camera zooms in to her face as she makes her way through a frightening maze of crowds. One by one, she magically locates her students, sans GPS (a recipe for modern horror), and finds each of them busy eking out a living. One boy is selling vegetables with his mother, while another is caught in the act of picking pockets. Over the next few minutes, the camera, and the film, lays bare the unimaginable cruelties endured by the students and their families, their impoverished living conditions, in a bid to “inspire” the audience.

The parents wax eloquent in their praise of the teacher who doesn’t look down upon their poor kids, even as Naina smiles sheepishly. “Look how noble and kind-hearted she is!” the film screams, as the camera follows Naina around the slums. The undeniable truth is established: She is the saviour. Nevermind that the reductive portrayal (Look, how sad their lives are) merely serves to reinforce the ‘us vs them’ divide.

This problematic montage is rather symptomatic of Bollywood when it comes to making films with a social message — namely, they end up perpetuating the very thing they set out to eradicate: abject ignorance. In Hichki ’s case, it discriminates while trying to send out a message that aims to be a rallying cry against discrimination. And yet, the grammar of Bollywood’s socially conscious films is such that they demand to be lauded for their good intentions — and studied in isolation from their shortcoming. In the same way Akshay Kumar’s Padman demanded to be appreciated at the beginning of the year.

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Wheeling away: The minute the film (Padman) abandons the grammar of the small-town is also the moment it stops trying to be a socially conscious

R Balki’s Padman — inspired by Twinkle Khanna’s fictionalised short story, which is based on the life of social entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham — set out to put an end to the taboos associated with menstruation and espouse the benefits of using a sanitary pad instead of dirty rags. It’d be remiss to not acknowledge that the endorsement of a commercially and universally popular actor like Akshay Kumar ensured that Padman ’s core message acquired an extended audience. But for a film that aimed to document the journey of a man who heralded a revolution by making low-cost sanitary pads accessible to rural women and, in the process, gifting them financial autonomy, it failed its audience.

To be fair, the first half of the film stays true to its universe: A small-town setting and focusing on newlywed Gayatri’s (Radhika Apte) life with her husband Lakshmi (Kumar). He confronts the harsh reality that highly priced sanitary pads are beyond the reach of the average Indian woman, when he catches his wife reusing a dirty rag during the five-day cycle. She is also on a wilful exile from their room; choosing to sleep, eat, and live in the balcony. It’s here that the film seems in command of balancing its emotional heft with its social awakening, setting Lakshmi off on his crusade to make a low-cost and efficient pad for his wife. Many rounds of trial and error ensue, including Lakshmi using fake blood to test the pads on himself, but all to no avail. Soon, his secret project is outed, and he is branded a creep and vilified before leaving his village for good.

Padman ’s second half seems to forget the reason for the film’s existence as well as its own first half as it shifts action to a metropolitan city, and acquiring a privileged gaze. The minute the film abandons the grammar of the small-town is also the moment it stops trying to be socially conscious. Instead, Padman takes an unnecessary detour into a love story and, in a misplaced zeal, proceeds to paint its lead in the colours of a superhero. As a result, the film glosses over the crucial bits — Lakshmi, in a matter of seconds, educates rural women about sanitary pads and convinces them to not only use it but also educate others, and sell them too.

What’s worth noting is that both Hichki and Padman suffer from the same condition: a severe case of good intentions. It is what they use as their get-rid-of-criticism card. They exploit the one-line noble intention to justify the flawed presentation. Of late, it’s been quietly accepted that a film can either have a message or be technically sound and entertaining, but, for some inexplicable reason, it cannot be both. As a result, the genre of socially conscious films is reduced to superficial portrayals that border on boring and long drawn-out PSAs (public service announcement).

On the one hand, last year’s Hindi Medium , a film that highlighted the duplicity of the education system, came slightly close to bringing the genre out of its rut, but was eventually defeated by preachy melodrama. And on the other, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha ’s ( TEPK ) misguided actuality pushed it back into the dark ages. Their dismal understanding of what constitutes a socially conscious film poses a pertinent question: What’s stopping Hindi films from being the exception to the unfortunate rule?

The answer, I suspect, is hidden in the myriad frames of Hichki and Padman , which show these films and, by extension, the genre treating social messages carelessly. In a hurry to discuss issues and conditions that don’t always meet the desiderata of living-room conversations, they tend to dumb down in a way that mocks the audiences’ intellect.

TEPK , in fact, falls on the opposite spectrum. Similar to Padman , TEPK too resorts to designing a hero in superhero clothing, who is meant to counter the ills plaguing society and solve it. It is emblematic of the mentality of filmmakers who adopt the socially conscious genre with the sole aim of being the knight in shining armour. They are brainwashed into believing that through their films, they need to attack a taboo and then offer a pat solution for it. Not only is that at odds with the grammar of social message filmmaking but it is also simplistic. It reduces the genre to a formulaic commodity to rake in quick moolah.

All-knighter: The misguided zeal of Toilet: Ek Prem Katha is emblematic of the mentality of filmmakers who adopt the socially conscious genre with the aim of being the knight in shining armour

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For a country replete with regressive traditions, beliefs and widespread injustice, socially conscious filmmaking promises to be an oasis. These films have, over the years, exhibited a penchant to engage even the most stubborn minds in conversation, only to lose out by making cinema that is, at best, fantasy and at worst, lazy filmmaking. If anything, the dismal state of Bollywood’s socially conscious packaging should be a clarion call for filmmakers and audiences alike to turn it into efficient filmmaking.

The rest of the year will see at least two more films that will be lauded for being brave about tackling two difficult issues. But, the question remains: will 2018 be the year we start denouncing taking a well-intentioned film as the bare minimum?

Poulomi Das is a film and pop-culture writer based in Mumbai