My Perspective: Aachar & Co.
How do you tell a story that feels nostalgic and yet relatable to the 21st century digitally-glued audience? The Sudha magazine and the metaphor of mangoes brings in the summer vibes and add in a flavour of old old Bangalore charm. Sprinkle the best version of Suprabhata with the morning routine of every household. Boom! We have the most exciting beginning of a story of past told in the future.
Not me who grew up in an orthodox brahmin family to understand every little detail right from the cream coloured walls to the blue grey coloured windows and what-do-you-mean-by-apartments kind of houses! Tell me how many times you would have wished that if your grandfather had bought a plot like that in Jayanagar, you wouldn’t have to struggle like today. Meh!
Madhusudhan Aachar works as a civil engineer in PWD and has ten plus one mouths to feed. A typical authoritarian (seemingly English educated) suited and booted in black but uncompromising of his cultural, caste and religious identities. As the grumpy and rigid head of the family, he may have made the major decisions in his family but his power seems useless when it comes to his children’s dreams. This is perhaps the first act of rebelliousness that I see in his children where the sons choose their own career path but the institution of marriage still binds them to their father. Bringing in inter-caste or inter-religious marriages will only complexity to the plotline. So, let us now focus on declining economic prosperity of the family and one among the many daughters’ (Suma) desire to marry the mans he wants, but sadly he doesn’t exist in this story. Thus begins the journey who rejects many a man and is rejected by a well-qualified, not to forget, Ph.D ‘in-those-days’, educated man.
Of all the stories that I have heard from m grandparents and parents, it is still hard to believe that there existed a woman who was not forced into marriage with a man whom she didn’t like. Suma is the woman that I could relate to because even today, 30+ unmarried woman in a family is like a fallen mango; if lucky enough, the fallen mango also gets an opportunity to become a pickle. This constant struggle of “becoming something” for a woman has been a struggle which my mother and grandmother failed to mention in their stories.
The movie got me so excited at the beginning only to make me realize how our generation (especially the 90s and 00s born)has held onto not only our past but also our parents’ and grandparents’ past. If the movie was made about the 1990s Bangalore, perhaps the excitement would have faded at the beginning because we would only find our stories while the stories of our forefathers (and foremothers, oops!) that we carry is lost.
Also not to forget, the silent sacrifices of our parents, uncles and aunts who had to give up on their dreams to fulfill family responsibilities isn’t unfamiliar, as we see many of our loved ones doing the same.
Amidst all the drama, the movie juxtaposes the past transitioning to present with the help of modernity while there are some aspects of the past that fails to even accommodate changes in the present, which is how the tradition has been kept alive; the gossipmongers, the sibling rivalry, the college attendance, and the sympathy for the spinster.
Is it a good movie? It is a feel-good movie. Should you watch it? I don’t know. Do what you want.
