Idealism ideally loses. Review on Aarakshan

This movie is a little late in the making. Had it been made in time, the effect would have been a little different. The movie deals with the issue of reservation, and let’s say that when we were competing, reservation was all we wanted to the extent that we were willing to change our casts for the coveted percentage difference.

So, reservation has worked as a medium of subversion than as a result of proactive policy. So, what have you achieved by turning the tables against those in power? At the most, brain drain in effect. You have left young India with no choice but to leave the country so that the poorest person can rule it for himself and make it a haven of crime and punishment. Hail reservation!

With the usual evil intent, the Machiavelli in the movie, played convincingly by Manoj, turns and twists reality for the ideal in the college’s principal to die, to replace it with an unending thirst for power, subjugation, and terror tactics. But it is his passion for his subject that allows the same person to deal with the evil intent of his enemy, and turn a desperate situation on its head. Ideally, the prinicipal would have lost, but Indian cinema being what it is, shows an unreal coup of sorts. The principal, with barely any resources and more liabilities, turns his perpetrator on his head, and unrealistically, all’s well that ends well.

Casting Saif as an ST in the movie is a triumph of sorts, different, and he does his best to suit the role. Deepika, playing the ideal, resolute girlfriend, torn between duty and desire, suits the role to a tee.

So, has the issue of reservation worked? For those needing it, it has, and for those, represented by Prateik in the movie, who don’t need it, it has proved to be a death knell. It hurts to see a much inferior person make the grade when you have slogged, died a thousand deaths, but could not get in due to that last grace mark. Hell can not be much worse than this.

Amitabh, playing the role of a principal in his second movie after Mohabbatein pulls of the character with panache and zeal. What is the underlying message of the movie, that old ideals of perfection and hard work are not relevant in this day and age? Isn’t it true? That the easiest way is to make life easy, instead of complicating things. As we evolve in life, the old ideals of hard work and perseverance have to give way to smart thinking and short cuts. And in that sense, perfection in the vocation of your choice is not a matter of thorough theory, but the application of ideas and ways to make the grade by tilting the graph in your favor, sometimes even by wrong means.