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Anil Kapoor’s
foray into production is marked by “Gandhi, My Father”,
a departure from the usual celluloid homage to Mahatma Gandhi.
So is Mahatma Gandhi the latest flavour in Bollywood? With
many current and recent past films having Gandhi as an icon,
Shoma A. Chatterji wonders.
When Richard Attenborough made Gandhi many years ago, no
one in his or her wildest imagination would have thought of
Gandhi as a good bet for success in Bollywood. But times have
changed and so have the average Indian filmmaker’s perceptions
about Indian history. Gandhi seems to be omnipresent in many
recent Indian films in terms of ideology, metaphor and essence
if not in terms of physical presence.
Actor Anil Kapoor’s foray into production is marked by
a departure from the usual celluloid homage to Mahatma Gandhi.
His soon-to-be-released Gandhi, My Father, presents Gandhi
mainly as the father of his children. It is a point-of-view
narration by Harilal Gandhi, his eldest offspring, who died,
unwept and unsung, alone and unattended to, at Mumbai’s
Sion Hospital a few months after his father’s assassination.Anil
Kapoor Films Company and Eros International have jointly produced
Gandhi, My Father.
Feroz Abbas Khan, who directed the notable theatre production
along the same theme under the title Mahatma v/s Gandhi, has
written and directed this film. The New York Times called
it “The finest English Play to emerge from India in a
long time.”
Mutations have been strong among the contemporary Indian audience
as well where a film like Murder rubs shoulders with one of
the biggest hits in recent years, Lage Raho Munnabhai where
Gandhi appears as a motivational ghost in front of the atypical
hero Munnabhai. Shyam Benegal made a historical film on the
early years of Mahatma Gandhi called The Making of the Mahatma
(1995). The film essayed a strong portrayal of Gandhi’s
wife Kasturba (Pallavi Joshi). Benegal’s film brings
out the sacrifices a woman must make, albeit with reluctance,
when she is married to a man with a mission, at a time when
he is being shaped to become the father of a nation. The personal
conflicts between Gandhi and Kasturba often throw up the schism
in the marriage, with Kasturba crusading relentlessly for
the security and welfare of her sons, and the husband slowly
evolving into more of a leader than a husband and father.
Kamal Hassan's Hari Om described a fictitious series of events
that led to the assassination of a figure parallel to Gandhi.
Jahnu Barua’s Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (2005) produced
by Anupam Kher who plays the dementia-ridden retired professor
haunted by delusions of having assassinated Gandhi presents
Gandhi as a concept that is lost on most countrymen today.
The film raised pertinent questions on the responsibility
of an individual as citizens both for Gandhi's murder and
for the people's subsequent failure to disseminate his ideas
and his legacy to contemporary India.
About Gandhi, My Father, Feroz Abbas Khan says, “Gandhi
has always been compelling, complex and strangely contemporary.
Sir Richard Attenborough introduced ‘Mahatma’ to
the West. I grew up understanding Gandhi through others till
I discovered a deep wound he carried in his heart. Somewhere
in the shadows of the great man lived his son, roaming the
streets of India like a beggar. He converted to Islam and
became Abdullah Gandhi as a rebellion, then reconverted to
Hinduism as a penance, finally drinking himself to death.
Mahatma Gandhi could transform the soul of a nation but couldn’t
save the soul of his own son,” says
“Dear Bapu,” wrote Harilal to his father once. “In
your laboratory of experiments, unfortunately, I am the one
truth that has gone wrong…Yours Harilal.” Elsewhere,
he said, “He is the greatest father you have…but
he is the one father I wish I did not have.” As for Gandhi,
he once said, “The greatest regret of my life….
Two people I could never convince – my Muslim friend
Mohammed Ali Jinnah and my own son Harilal Gandhi.”
Akshay Khanna plays Harilal, the mentally battered, emotionally
disturbed son of Mahatma Gandhi, an embarrassment to the entire
Gandhi clan so much so that no one came to his bedside when
he lay dying. “I have tried to unfold this personal tragedy
of a great father and his no-good son against the backdrop
of racial hatred in South Africa and the colonial humiliation
in India because these two historical truths moved me deeply.
My search for the human side of the Mahatma took me to South
Africa and to different parts of India, passing through libraries,
memories of scholars and his immediate family members. I then
decided to make a film about a principled father and his unfortunate
son. For me, Gandhi evolved into a greater human being through
his personal, political and social struggles because he always
placed his principles and his quest for human dignity above
everything else,” sums up Khan.
Says Anil Kapoor, “I decided to produce this film because
it is a story that gives a fascinating insight into Mahatma
Gandhi’s life not so much as the father of the nation
but as father to his son Harilal. As producer, I believe in
setting international standards for my production banner.”
Darhshan Jariwalla, a famous actor of the Gujarati stage,
plays Gandhi. Shefali Chhaya performs Kasturba while Bhumika
Chawla plays Hari’s wife Gulab Gandhi.
David Macdonald is director of cinematography while four-time
National Award winner Nitin Chandrakant Desai is production
designer for this period film.
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