10 questions for Feroz A Khan & Anil Kapoor
Dear Mr Khan & Mr Kapoor,
Here at pfc, this is the third post on your film Gandhi My Father. So, you can imagine how all of us were and are still curious about the film.
When the first promos came out, I was excited. It looked nice and with some big n talented guys, I was looking forward to it. Also, because somebody dared to touch such a topic. A topic that will never be part of the history books. The word was “dare” and I was all for it.
Then came the reviews. 3, 3.5 n 4/5. Wow…this gonna rock, i think. Then friends Vasanbala n Kartik krishnan posted their “not so good” reviews. I still wanted to watch the film. I desperately wanted to like it also. 15th august…18:00 pm show…Fun Republic (andheri west). It was holiday and there were long queues at the ticket counter. I thought must be for Chak De India. Thank God, its doing well.
Sir..Only front row seats for Gandhi My Father. what ? Only front row. May be the cheaper ones have sold out. ok. Give me. When I entered the auditorium, was happy to see that it was housefull. Front row seat but still I was happy. Atleast something good is happening.
Now after watching the film, i desperately want to ask you guys so many things…anyone who has liked and understood and moved by the film, plz do reply. I need to know why i could not figure out what you guys got. Why Nelson Mandela and some nobel prize winner felt so emotional about it ? Or have i lost it like KK and Vasan ?
there are so many things i want to know…but here goes the first ten….
1. Why Mahamta Gandhi opposed Harilal’s marriage ? (In the film, he tells Kasturba….Kastoor, tumhe to pata hi hai. ) Par Firozesaab, hame nahi pata. Aur pata bhi nahi chala. Will you please let us know.
2. When Harilal was in jail..his wife was asked to go to India. Again, i think Mahatma Gandhi decided it. Or was it someone else? But why was she told to go back ? That was again a point of confilct between Bapu n Harilal. But why it never hapened ?? Why Harilal never asked Bapu about it?
3. Was there a way out to go for law studies without clearing the matric exams ? If yes, how ? If no, why was Harilal feeling bad about it ? Why Gandhi never told him.
4. what were these scenes meant for….a firangi guy fixing the hand-made shower, durga pooja scene in calcutta and Harilal informing his wife that he has invited his friends for lunch, Gandhi’s cry for help during the riots, one gujjubhai cracking some gujrati jokes in gujrat after his bicycle accident n then there are few more. Cud not understand the point.
5. How was Gandhi as a father ? How he treated his three other sons ? Were they also treated like Harilal? What happened to them ? What happened to Gandhi – their father ?
6. How was Harilal as a father ? 5 kids and then ? The man who blamed his dad for everything…how he treated his own kids ?
7. How Harilal lost everything in calcutta ? Bad business…i assume. But why he had to cheat n all…when he was doing good for himself.
8. Why he converted to islam…financial problems n stability. But the guy who made him convert, had he any agenda to it. Why he supported Harilal’s conversion. Was he fighting any battle against Bapu. then why he re-converted to hinduism ? Because the maulwisaab treated him badly ?
9. Was Harilal supposed to be 18 years old in 1906 (source wikipedia)…the scene where Akshaye Khanna palys football. Akshaye Khanna n 18 ??
10. And when n where do you have the next show of the play Mahatma vs Gandhi ? Now, i want to catch the play desperatly.
So, was Harilal a loser in every possible way, who just happened to Gandhi’s son. Was that true ? Where was the conflict sir ? where was it ? N harilal died of syphilis….is that true ?
All those rave reviews and four stars, were they for the movie ? Were they just to be in your good books, Mr Kapoor ? Or were they just for the intention behind the movie ? For the word “dare” ? But does the intention justifies the final product ? Nah. M disppointed.
Sir, like many others in the industry..ur cronies can give u a great logic….pfc is anurag kashyap worshipping site. so we will never say good things about ur film for obvious reasons. You can happily assume that n turn the page. But it feels terribly bad when u expect something n u r left with so many unanswered questions(oops…its much more than 10!).
Yours truly
phoenixnu
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I think apart from the fact that the movie was bad there is another reason for your disappointment and the reason is your built up of expectations from the film. Before you step into the theaters you have build up a mental picture of the film, with loads and loads of expectations. Ofcourse its not entierly your as you must have believed the rave (?) reviews and the ratings. But partly it is your fault to let these expectations build up fo the movie. If i can compare it with cricket its like playing a premeditated shot expecting a certain kind ball to be bowled. I solution is to watch for each ball and paly it to its merit and NOT to play a premeditated shot. You went in to the theaters with your premeditated expectations from the film and when the film did not live it up to your expectations you are uterly disappointed. What if you were never shown the tarilors , you had never read the reviews and the ratings. you never knew who produced directed the moview and you happen to catch the movie out of the blue then may be you would not have been so disappointed. Ofcourse i agree with your questions and GMF is a very loosly directed movie with lots of loose ends. i think as someone said it has got the treatment of a theater play ofcourse since its based on a play. but your questions are valid. there are too many open questions in the movie and the audience is left confused trying to figure out the reason behind the various things happening.
1)i never really read too much about gandhi, but i guess he was very posseceive of his son and it might be so that he wanted to find a bride for his son himself or maybe he was opposed to the caste from which gulab gandhi came.
2)i guess gandhi sent of harilal’s wife to india firstly he never liked her, and maybe he thought with his wife gone harilal would concentrate more on gandhi’s work in S.A
3) apparantly i googled a bit and seems you actually could study law in london without passing the metric exam. those were the days huh!!!
4)i hardly doubt all theese scenes had any special meaning as such they were just time fillers i guess.
and now typing this is getting me as bored as i was half way through this film.
it was a nice attemt, and towrads the end it sort of did become a good film, but am afraid the script ws juts not tight enough to engross the audience.
by the way how is it doing in the box office?
is it really going housefull?
i guess gandhi wanted his son to be a satyagrahi and felt that gulab’s being there would distract his son. gandhi’s views on sex are thus (refer to ‘my experiments with truth’)- one should sleep with one’s wife only to produce a child and never for other reasons. so gandhi would frown upon sex which was for ‘recreation’.
“The apple fell far away from the tree”- Harilal was a spoilt brat. Gandhi was against nepotism and he was too harsh with him. he never got attention from his father, so he would do things to make his father take notice of him.
Harilal was a bad father too. In the movie they mention that his kids were raised by the kasturba and the ashram people. Wikipedia has bits on his other sons, Manilal, Ramdas, Devdas.
He converts just to spite Gandhi. But reconverts after Baa comes to meet him. (they’ve shown this) She’s the only person he loves.
good post phoenix…aise kuch sawaal mere dimaagh mein bhi aaye the after watching this film…infact i read sumwhere that harilal had got re-married…m plannin to read the biographies which r available in the mkt…wese harilal was a super solid subject for a film…but yaar woh mazaa nahin aaya…
can anyone refer any book?
here r 2 books 1) Gandhiji
i think they will be available in any major bookshop ..after the sudden intrest in harilal’s life these days .. thanks to the film
@Rahul…thtas true. after so much big talks by the persons concerned, i was expecting atleast a decent film.
@Ritchik…thnx for replying to few queries. dont think its god at the box office. tw, they hav just relesaed teh english verion of the book on which the film is based. the curiosity value will help the book.
@Kapil…remarriege ?? nahi suna yaar. now m planning to go 4 the book also. atleast kuch to fayda hua. n thnx for the names of the books.