Piyush Roy
Early in the film, Gour Hari Dastaan: The Freedom File, there is a scene where protagonist Gour Hari Das is on one of his routine visits to yet another state department of the Maharashtra government in his three-decade-long struggle to obtain a freedom fighter’s tamrapatra (certificate). The officer-in-charge, a friendly chatty man, tries to locate Das’ state of origin, ‘Orissa’, on a rusty India map in a forgotten corner of his office. Not able to locate the state in a quick glance, he wonders, ‘is Orissa in Bengal’, and leaves. Das, an aged Odia gentleman residing in Mumbai for over five decades, walks towards the uncared map, straightens it up with fond nostalgia, and turns its hidden ‘eastern’ part and Orissa, back into focus. It’s a subtly done, silent act of assertion that to most ‘national’ viewers might seem inconsequential. Yet, the necessity of its placement and the nature of its execution, indicate a detailed understanding of the context of the protagonist, and reflect the empathy in research that has gone into the writing of the film.
It will strike a chord in every Odia person, who has ventured into the rest of India or beyond, for work or leisure, and has at some time or the other had to explain that ‘being Odia’ is not the same as ‘being Bengali’, and that Orissa does exist, as a distinct regional state, now called Odisha after the 113th Constitution Amendment Bill. Geographically it also is a relatively larger state than its famous neighbour, with recorded history acknowledging it as a distinct linguistic territory for nearly two and a half millennia after it first courted national headlines with the Kalinga war.
Gour Hari Dastaan is perhaps the first time an Odia person is a protagonist in a Hindi film, if you discount Kareena Kapoor’s sexy, but sketchy semi-fictional Kaurawaki from Santosh Sivan’s Asoka. The film begins in a village in northern Odisha in pre-independent India, and finds its decisive dramatic turn in the Balasore Central jail in the new millennium. It’s a pity that the film hasn’t released in Das’ birth state, yet. Because Gour Hari in many ways is an authentic introduction to the Odia ‘aam aadmi’ – – non-confrontationist but resilient, persevering but not aggressively ambitious, and mostly at peace with simple pleasures.
In addition, he also is a ‘true Gandhian’ in attitude and aptitude.Needless to add, his daily life is unhurried, simple, and for the lack of a better word ‘non-dramatic’ in any obvious way. But there is ample drama in the film, for those used to pause and reflection in their engagement with a biography. Director Anant Mahadevan ventures into his career’s most challenging real life re-telling, because the narrative’s dominant rasaor emotion– shanta or quietude – also is the most difficult to perform and engage with. So when critics are irked about, Gour Hari Dastaan moving ‘at a dull and languid pace, offering only sporadic bursts of drama’, I wonder, what exactly was their expectation? Did they want the inherently calm protagonist to give in to a fit-of-rage ‘dramatic’ outburst like that of Anupam Kher doing similar rounds of the Mantralaya in Saaransh? Some critics have suggested that Kher himself, or his Saaransh act could have been a better reference. Kher’s was a power-packed act authentic to the character in his context – both in the desperation of that drama and his own socio-cultural roots. Vinay Pathak’s Gour Hari is in sync with the regional quirks and character traits of his protagonist.
When will we realise that we are a nation of many Indias and Indians? The socio-cultural sensibilities that drive a Gujarati person’s attitude to work vary from that of an Odia, just as the behavioural reactions of a Malayalee for similar provocations may differ from that of a Punjabi.
What pace can we expect from the life of a protagonist, who has been patiently knocking the same doors, travelling the same routes, undaunted for years, age and the increasing discomfort of travelling in Mumbai trains notwithstanding, for a letter of state recognition? His exasperated family at one point asks him to let go as they become financially well-off to not be dependent on the pension dole that had been attracting others making similar rounds. How fast could be the adventure in a story whose lone drama is about a wait 32 years long? If we can appreciate old age in all its existential ‘slow’ rhythm in an Amour, or a Yasujir? Ozu film, why grudge it here?
Yes, the film does distractoccasionally, for instance, in the unclosed and unexplained sub-plot of an ‘anti-feminist’ journalist, who hogs screen time second only to the protagonist. But most of the cameos, do work, to reveal asides into the personality of an unassuming protagonist, both as a contrast, and a lesson that our worldviews are often constructed by us. We see in others, what we are ourselves! Hence, a cantankerous neighbour sees Gour Hari as a liar, a ‘hits-driven’ media boss dismisses him as a boring story, a dealmakerviews him as an opportunist lacking tact, a youngster on the move reviews his to be a wasted life, an empathetic daughter-in-law sees in him an idol unacknowledged, a willy politician worries about him becoming a public figure whose popularity needs to be clipped, and a successful lawyer views him as a winnable case.
Pathak’s Gour Hari of course never lets these diverse, distracting emotional reactions deflect his personal tryst with patience. The only point where he betrays some emotion, is for a few seconds when he finally gets his ‘freedom fighter’ letter. Even then, he regains his composure to not turn that occasion of vindication, into one of ecstatic celebration. It needs tremendous courage on the part of a filmmaker to delinkthe drama from his telling’s biggest dramatic moment, just to be true to the essence of his character.
Moments like these, also are windows for creative liberty to flourish beyond the source inspiration, wherein an adaptor picks the perspective that he/she most wants the viewers to identify with and hints at his/her personal attractions and reasons for sourcing a particular story from many.
Living in a dynamic, multi-tasking life in fast forward, we have forgotten the charms of pause and ponder, the joys of sharing and selfless care, the need to allow us to get off our need for constant action and the ability to walk with someone whose gait maybe different from ours. Gour Hari Dastaan, the protagonist and the film, teach us to appreciate that lack of pace is not always a folly, it could also be an initiation into the flavour of a different rhythm to life.