Barely a passing grade

Naina Mathur (Rani Mukherji) has finally landed a teaching position. It’s been a bit of a struggle getting here: Barely a passing grade

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Obie Shrestha

Published at : March 31, 2018

Updated at : March 31, 2018 08:14

Naina Mathur (Rani Mukherji) has finally landed a teaching position. It’s been a bit of a struggle getting here: Naina has Tourette’s Syndrome and the involuntary movements and sounds that are a part of the condition mean that despite her stellar academic creds, authorities at the many different places she’s applied to have been doubtful of her ability to teach, and politely shown her the door. Only St Notker’s—her own alma mater, coincidentally—has taken a chance on her, and she couldn’t be more thrilled. But Naina soon discovers there’s a reason for the rushed recruitment midway through term; this is no ordinary classroom she’s about to step into.

You see, Naina has been given charge of 9F, a class comprised solely of students from the slums close by who have been admitted to Notker’s under India’s Right to Education Act. Access to the premises, however, has not translated into integration for these kids: not only have they been placed in a separate section, but they are also very much looked down upon by both teachers and most of the other students, who seem to see them as hopeless cases, an unnecessary burden on the school’s resources. This ostracisation and neglect has played a part in giving rise to a defiant, defensive bunch, blowing off lessons and seemingly intent on getting into trouble. Naina, then, has her hands full, and she’s initially overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the task, especially since others on the faculty are offering no encouragement or support. But, as someone who has felt first hand the pain of being ridiculed and judged for things beyond her control, she also knows there’s probably no one better placed to help these kids.

Siddharth P Malholtra’s new Hichki joins a long line of ‘unconventional teacher’ films that both Hollywood and Bollywood have been churning out with regularity over the decades. Think Dead Poets’ Society or Dangerous Minds, Taare Zameen Par or even Mukherji’s own Black—these might have been set in different times, places and contexts, but all provide testimony to the transformative power of an engaging, inspiring, understanding teacher, one who is able to make students see past the rigours of textbook learning. Majority of these films have come to follow a familiar arc, and you’re likely to—if not exactly pinpoint—at least know broadly where things are going and how they’re going to end. But Malhotra’s film, unfortunately, is even more formulaic than most on the list—it maintains an air of contrivance and manipulation, even the efforts of a reliable cast fail to dispel. Indeed, for a film that tries so hard to make a case for creative, unorthodox teaching methods, Hichki itself feels exceedingly rote.

Based on a 2005 book by Brad Cohen called Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me the Teacher I Never Had, which also later spawned a Hallmark movie of the same name, Hichki represents Mukherji’s return to the screen after a four-year hiatus—the last time we saw her was in 2014’s crime thriller Mardaani—and the actor is in good form. Much like she did in Black, but obviously on a far less intense level, she portrays convincingly the distinctive physical and vocal tics that define her character’s ailment, and never once does the performance veer towards caricature, which is a real risk with these things.

Even so, as the film goes on, the condition starts to frequently seem incidental to the story, purely because Malhotra and his co-writers have packed too much into the screenplay. Though it appears to be the focus of the narrative early on, the depiction of Tourette’s eventually finds itself competing with other “social issues” that the film draws in, particularly the circumstances of the 9F students, and the hard realities of implementing RTE on the ground—with the result that neither Naina nor the kids’ experiences are conveyed with the necessary conviction. One can see that the writers were looking for ways in which to strengthen the bond between teacher and students, and having them share a misfit status might have seemed like a good call on paper, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark in execution.

It’s therefore to the credit of the young actors that despite being painted in such broad strokes, they still manage to show some real personality. Of particular note among them is Harsh Mayar, whom you might remember as the little guy in 2011’s I Am Kalam—he infuses such great bite and believability to his angry, rebellious but also deeply vulnerable Atish that you wish the writers had tossed all else aside and just zoomed in on his story. That was the path Taare Zameen Par had taken, if you recall: Despite working within a similar overall structure as Hichki, and foregone conclusion not withstanding, that film had stood out so because it wholly immersed us in the inner life and experiences of the eight-year-old lead. But Malhotra & Co lose out on impact in trying to cover too much territory, characters mostly relegated to mere archetypes against a simplistic, black-and-white landscape.

This also extends to how the students’ transformation is put across—primarily in montage. While it was already stretching credibility to think that Naina is somehow qualified to teach all the subjects on the curriculum, even if we were to accept that our heroine is some sort of magical educational machine, and that these clichéd, forcibly “out-of-the-box” lessons are actually effective, the film places an unnecessarily tight deadline on her, not to mention the burden of a mustache-twirling villain as played by Neeraj Kabi. Though all these added challenges are designed to make her inevitable triumph even sweeter, they lend overly-melodramatic quality to the story.

Hichki has its moments, though not nearly enough, in my book, to justify the price of admission. It’s commendable in trying to adapt Cohen’s tale to an Indian context, but would’ve done better to dig out more details and nuance to do with the latter, rather than the surficial and frequently sanctimonious examination of poverty, prejudice and privilege that it indulges in.