Review & Rating
Cast & Crew
Starring :Manoj Bajpayee,Rajkummar Rao
Directed by :Hansal Mehta
Produced by :Sunil Lulla,Shailesh R.Singh
Music by :Karan Kulakarni
Release Date :26 February 2016(India)
Review:
Words do not make poetry, Aligarh University professor Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras (Manoj
Bajpayee) tells Delhi journo Deepu Sebastien (Rajkummar Rao) well over an hour into Hansal
Mehta's Aligarh.
So, in addition to being a portrayal of the gay experience in an unjust and insensitive society, Aligarh
is a human drama with universal resonance. It encapsulates the plight of all dissenters. Mehta strips
the tragic true story of all vestiges of overt sentimentality. Instead, he fills the depths of the
understated but intensely moving drama with genuine, unsettling emotion.Aligarh, essentially a study
of a victim of entrenched prejudices, articulates its poetry of pain with remarkable precision, right
down to the subtlest of its nuances.Rajkummar Rao, in his third outing with Hansal Mehta, provides
the ideal foil to Bajpayee with a performance modulated to perfection. With every pore and sinew
pressed into service, Bajpayee, in a miraculous osmosis, becomes inseparable from the tragically
reclusive figure that the Marathi teacher and poet was.As Siras, the actor projects much more than
just a mimetic guise. He digs very, very deep to totally internalise the man's debilitating agony.
Manoj Bajpayee, as a gentle, dignified soul whose privacy is invaded by a blinkered society
intolerant of its non-conformists, propels Aligarh forward.In fact, he says that he does not understand
what the word 'gay' means. He abhors labels, but he is too soft and meek a man to wage a concerted
war against his tormentors. Siras rues that today's youngsters tend to reduce everything to convenient,
sweeping adjectives - fantastic, fabulous, awesome, et al - losing out in the bargain on the possibility
of grasping the subtleties of life and love.What Siras leaves unsaid is that it is his sexual orientation
that places him most directly at odds with the guardians of an ultra-conservative campus.The
protagonist of Aligarh is at multiple removes from his milieu. As he himself spells out early in the
film, he teaches Marathi in a city of Urdu-speaking people. He is also single in a colony of married
people and conventional families.Both Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar (which also had Manoj Bajpayee in the
male lead) and City Lights (with Rajkummar Rao) homed in on migrants pushed into acts of
desperation in an unwelcoming adopted city, Mumbai. In a more general sense, this gutsy film also
extends the director's favourite theme - outsiders refusing to blend in and falling afoul in the process.
Aligarh is an obvious companion piece to Hansal Mehta's Shahid, which, too, told the story of a
member of a minority group fighting a lonely losing battle.The principal spaces that Deepu occupies -
the newspaper office and his PG accommodation - are infinitely brighter and more cheerful. The
enthusiastic young scribe, on the other hand, is only starting out in life and has no reason to be
downbeat about the future. Both the sound design (by Mandar Kulkarni), which allows ample space
for silences, and the cinematography (by Satya Rai Nagpaul) accentuate the dark mood that encircles
Siras. Melancholy hangs heavy on Siras. Even the two Lata numbers that he savours - both soulful
Madan Mohan compositions - are gloom-drenched.The older man, battered by the vagaries of life, is
a few months away from superannuation. He clings to his pint of Royal Stag and fix of old Lata
Mangeshkar songs to tide over his solitude.The interaction is germane to the film's structure as the
two characters represent two opposed realities of contemporary India. But in film editor and
screenwriter Apurva M Asrani's script, the two men have heart-to-heart conversations (even though
Siras's eyes rarely meet Deepu's), bond with each other, and even take a selfie during a boat ride.In
real life, the reporter who chases the Siras story never actually met the professor in person. They only
spoke on the phone a few times.The film returns repeatedly to the pivotal opening sequence in which
Siras' privacy is invaded, and each replay reveals crucial additional details and perspectives.The
lecturer, with his back to the wall, finds an unlikely sympathiser in a rookie journalist who decides to
get to the bottom of the dynamics at work on the campus against Siras.What follows is an ugly,
concerted campaign by the university authorities to hound the professor and break his spirit.Siras
loses his professorship and his staff accommodation after two media men armed with a video-
recorder barge into his home and film him in bed with a rickshaw-puller.Aligarh hinges on the legal
battle that Siras fought against his university to have his job, home and dignity restored to him.The
film is set in the months following the 2009 Delhi high court ruling that held Article 377
unconstitutional and decriminalized homosexuality - the verdict was overturned by the Supreme
Court in 2013. The story, an introductory disclaimer asserts, is inspired by real events modified on
the basis of related media reports and legal proceedings. Aligarh is equal parts a powerful character
study, an incisive social commentary, a tragedy of harrowing proportions and a cautionary parable
about a society rife with contradictions.Mehta's treatment of an emotive theme is sensitive and
sedate; the film's impact is searing.Aligarh, as pointed and poignant a portrait of loneliness as any
that Indian cinema has ever produced, is unwaveringly true to that dictum. Poetry, says the
sexagenarian protagonist, is what springs forth from between the lines - the pauses and the silences.
Rating:
Cinemacart : 4/5
Check out this trailer
