The Great Indian Family: Vicky Kaushal Anchors A Progressive Film That Demands Your Attention

This is #CriticalMargin where Ishita Sengupta gets contemplative over new Hindi films and shows.

Vicky Kaushal in The Great Indian Family

MY earliest memory growing up is being called something: “Ei Bangali”. If I shut my ears, I can hear it even now. The voice of a kid, as young as I was back then, saying something he did not fully understand. Neither did I. In Kolkata, the city where I was born in, ours was the only Hindu family in a Muslim neighbourhood. I lived in that house for two decades. During Eid, I accompanied my uncles to their friends’ houses; my mother made tea for everyone my father brought home from his evening strolls. No one identified us by religion except that one kid who called me “Ei Bengali” and hid behind a pillar. Like it was a taunt. For the longest time, I viewed religion like that — a child’s taunt, signifying nothing.

This is not to sanitise things. My mother still remembers in great detail that during the 1992 communal riots when she was pregnant with me, my father’s friends, all of them Muslim, had guarded our house and consoled a frightened woman. They had said no one would harm her and no one did. By the time I grew up, all of this seemed like a distant past. Religious divisiveness, manifesting only in heated cricket matches, was a problem that appeared solved.

I don’t live in that area anymore. I have no way to tell if the shop I used to pass on my way to school has changed or not. But the people around me have. They spend their time watching news channels which spew communal hatred. They pore over their phones and believe every WhatsApp forward that spreads Islamophobic rumours. In conversations, they freely refer to a Muslim person as “Muhammadan” like it is their sole identity. Like, these grown-up adults have regressed into the child who teased me two decades back.

Vijay Krishna Acharya’s The Great Indian Family an endlessly moving film that is suffused with good humour, trains its lens on such adults but speaks in the easy language of a child. It talks about inclusiveness and the redundancy of slotting people in the tags of religion but does so with admirable frankness and zero moral high ground. The didacticism is in the thought and not in the execution, making it accessible without diluting the intent. Acharya’s film is an angry critique on who we have become, conveyed in the affable tone of who we used to be. It is about the child who knew no better and adults who should.

Take for instance how far the filmmaker goes with his one-line premise: a Hindu man discovers one day that he is Muslim. In the current climate of political extremism, it is a gutsy proposition to explore no matter how one decides to go about it. Acharya, who has helmed spectacle films like Dhoom 3 (2013), Thugs of Hindostan (2018) in the past, opts for heavy embellishments to craft a story for easy understanding.

In Balrampur, a city in Uttar Pradesh, lives a revered Brahmin pandit called Siyaram Tripathi (Kumud Mishra) with his family. His religion is his profession. He and his brother (Manoj Pahwa) sing devotional songs for a living. They are also consulted by people for their religious wisdom. Siyaram’s son is Ved Vyas Tripathi aka Billu (Vicky Kaushal), a young man with a gifted voice. So famous is he that he has earned the moniker of ‘Bhajan Kumar’ in his neighbourhood. And so accustomed is he to being hailed as the hero that when his friend comes to him with girl-problems, he takes a bike and rams into another part of their locality he doesn’t frequent a lot — the one occupied by Muslims.

In his depictions of the two communities, Acharya swathes them in formulaic tones. Everything in Billu’s house is draped in saffron. All the men wear dhotis, they speak in chaste Hindi. The other side of the city is, similarly, imbued with all hues of green. This is Acharya playing with our perception as well as baiting us to make hasty readings. The story he intends to tell is hidden between both these shades, and dipped in them.

His protagonist too falls for the bait. When Billu comes to know that he was born as a Muslim and the revelation leads to an altercation at home, he leaves his house in his father’s absence. He ends up staying with a Muslim friend. Partly out of curiosity and mostly to anger his uncle, he expresses interest to learn to ‘be a Muslim’. It is a hilarious moment which directly punctures holes in our perceived ideas of looking at a community through stereotypes. Similarly, the day he decides to meet his estranged family, Billu wears a green kurta to show he has ‘become’ a Muslim.

Acharya’s penchant of taking direct jibes without complicating the narrative language is evident throughout the film. The character of Siyaram is presented as a fair man who believes in taking decisions after weighing the opinion of everyone in the house. The Tripathis have what is called an in-house democracy where members of the household cast votes to resolve every predicament. At one point, Billu says that although such a premise is veered towards attaining equality, the results are often influenced in wanting to please one another. The filmmaker’s intent to make a larger point is evident here but it is to the writing’s merit (Acharya has furnished it) that the detail fits into the story organically.

Much of the charm of The Great Indian Family resides in how well these big swings land in an otherwise template-driven film, culminating in a moving monologue at the end. On paper, it is a cop out but it translates on screen with aching sincerity. So much of this has to do with the performance of the actors involved. Mishra is always a treat to watch but as Siyaram he lets even a twitch of his muscle do the heavy-lifting. Equally impressive is Pahwa who straddles the tricky line of reckoning with faith and religion. Then there is Kaushal, an actor incapable of giving a bad performance. He brings an earnestness to Billu’s character which in the hands of a lesser actor would be deemed as silliness.

Granted Acharya’s film has its set of blindspots. It makes broad commentary on religion but remains silent on matters of caste. The female characters are underwritten (Manushi Chhillar’s role exists just for the sake of existing). But it is also one of his better films in forever that goes further than most films would dare to go. The outing presents reality in the guise of satire, throws facts at us wearing kid gloves. Most of it works because The Great Indian Family gives centerstage to what the country has become by throwing light on what it was. It is simple but not simplistic.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of OTTplay. The author is solely responsible for any claims arising out of the content of this column.)

Share