Image Copyright– EROS International

Venue: DT Star Mall, Sector 30 Gurgaon
Date: 3 May 2016

This is going to be a tough one.

On one hand, Director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari tries to depict the struggle that Chandra (Swara Bhaskar), a maid, faces in educating her teenage daughter Apeksha (Ria Shukla) and giving her a better life. It is a reality with thousands of mothers in India who kill themselves only to ensure a smoother ride for their children. We see them every day, as domestic staff, as the cleaning lady, as the laundry woman and so on. Thus, this is a very relatable episode (remember Rohini Hattangadi from “Arth”) that easily strikes a chord with us.

On the other hand, Chandra joins school after years just to ensure that her daughter continues with her studies is a bit much. Further, after a break of many years of education, Chandra manages to score so well in mathematics (we really don’t see much of the other subjects) is really difficult to swallow. Such ludicrous events make the film most unconvincing. Wish the director spent some more time in working out the details for a more persuasive script.

Most important, why Bhaskar? She is a young lady who is possibly yet to experience motherhood. Thrusting the role of a single parent of a teenager doesn’t do her justice. Ideally, an actor should be able to pull of any age / class. And we can see that Bhaskar has tried very hard to fit the role, and at times, has managed to bring her struggle to lead a respectable life alive. Perhaps, she lacks the maturity that only life can give to pull off the character and at times her lines become mere pedantic jibes.

Incidentally, Pankaj Tripathy as the rather histrionic headmaster as well as the mathematics teacher Srivastav brings comic relief to this rather serious film. At times a little overboard, there is no dearth of dramatic people around us.

We were looking forward to Nil Battey Sannata for a while and after watching it, are a little confused. Experiments should be encouraged. Moreover, a film without a hero / romance / action is a bold step without the box office in mind. Perhaps a little more thought in the story and the casting would have given us a more convincing experience rather than a stereotype and saved us from thinking what went wrong with a right film?.