There is an old poem by William Blake (1791) called “The Little Boy Lost”, that seems to describe the way Harilal Gandhi related to his awe-inspiring, larger than life father, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi…
“Father! Father! Where are you going?
O do not walk so fast.
Speak, father, speak to your little boy,
Or else I shall be lost.”
The night was dark, no father was there
The child was wet with dew;
The mire was deep, and the child did weep,
And away the vapour flew.” ……..
PLOT
“Gandhi, My Father” is a movie about what little is known (based on a book by Chandulal Dalal) about the relationship between the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi (Darshan Jariwala), and his black sheep, oft disowned son, Harilal Gandhi (Akshaye Khanna). The movie spans about 42 years (1906-1948), starting with M. Gandhi’s sojourn in South Africa. He stayed there with his wife Kasturba (Shefali Shah) and his three other sons, with Harilal being forced to stay back in India as his father wanted him to finish schooling in his mother tongue, and not English.
While Harilal is trying to finish his matriculation, rather unsuccessfully, he is dreaming away of marrying his childhood sweetheart Gulab (Bhoomika Chawla), of studying Law in London and becoming a barrister like his father. Against his father’s wishes, he ends up marrying Gulab when he is barely out of his teens. Harilal is summoned to South Africa by his father in order to help his father out with the Satyagraha movement that he started there against the Dutch colonists. Harilal wanting to please his father, becomes the first Satyagrahi to go to jail in South Africa. Yet,his heart is not in it….all he wants is to be happy with wife and family (he has 4 children), and study law in England. Neither of those dreams is supported by his father, which becomes the main point of contention between father and son.
Harilal tries to strike out on his own, tries to set up his own business, but he fails miserably…just as he does at studies. His wife is wonderfully supportive, but she finds it tough going when Harilal gets into a mountain of debt with creditors and turns to alcohol for support. Ultimately, Harilal loses his family (his wife leaves him and dies of some mysterious illness, his children are brought by Gandhi and Kasturba), and keeps drifting from one occupation to another, from one religion to another…forever seeking to find himself, yet failing at that as well…..
MY TAKE-
Don’t expect to know ALL there is to know about Gandhiji as a father, don’t ask questions as to WHY Harilal was the way he was….this movie does not satisfy your curiosity on either of those scores. What it does is shed some light on the personality of Gandhi- the family man, versus the “father of the nation” personality we know more about. The movie also tells you (as much as it can) about the little known son of Gandhi, Harilal, about WHO he was, and how he related to his famous father and his strong mother Kasturba.
What appealed to me about this movie is its honesty and its intelligence. At no point does the movie attempt to speculate,give you answers where there are none, or connect the dots for you. What you see on screen is Gandhiji’s famous integrity, his uncompromising “black and white” view of right and wrong (which was so needed by our nation at the time), and how it helped him direct a diverse nation to one common goal of freedom. You see those same principles being applied to his sensitive older son Harilal, a boy who craves his father’s approval and support in what he does, as much as he needs his direction. You see a torn Kasturba, trying to be a good wife and mother at the same time. It is up to you, the audience, to figure out what goes wrong in these relationships.
The way I saw it, had Harilal been a stronger person, someone who was capable of standing upto his father and asserting his wishes, Gandhiji would have appreciated it and been a better father to him. At the same time, had Gandhiji, as a father, been gentler, less uncompromising and rigid about his principles, Harilal might have turned out to be a worthwhile son after all. But the fact is that neither was Harilal strong, nor was Gandhiji the ideal father for a boy like Harilal, even though, ironically, Gandhiji was the best father our NATION could have asked for at the time...
I loved the “gray” territory this movie traverses, and the fact that there were no easy answers… I had to put myself in the characters shoes to figure out what was going on. What made that possible were the stunning, deeply introspective performances by all the lead actors. I always thought Akshaye Khanna was a bit over-rated as an actor…but boy, was I wrong! From playing a young 16 year old, looking wistfully at his father for approval, breaking into a shy, proud smile when he gets it, to playing a petulant 40 something year old who pretends to ignore his famous father, yet is so obviously aware of him, Akshaye completely immerses himself in the character of Harilal.
Darshan Jariwala plays a dynamic, compelling Gandhi. He also conveys his helplessness as a father beautifully. As for Shefali Shah, just through a flicker of her eyes, she makes it so easy for you, the audience, to feel her inner turmoil time and again. This actress so deserves to be lauded and done justice to on big screen. The background score, beautiful sets, using black and white footage to convey important historic events like the Quit India movement and the partition, all add tremendous value to the film.
What I liked best though was the quiet, hushed, poignant climax to the movie….you HAVE to watch the movie to know what I am talking about. Thank you Mr Anil Kapoor for making this movie, and for having the courage to allow the director to make it the way he did.
