There are two Indias. Instead of railway tracks, Nagraj Popatrao Manjule uses a wall to talk about life on the other side.
From the privileged side comes Professor Vijay Barse, on the verge of retirement and always ready to push a new thought.
Manjule made his point about caste divide with stark rawness in Sairaat (remade by Dharma Productions as Dhadak in Hindi). When a regional filmmaker desires to widen the net and go national, he needs two pillars. An emphatic social message with its heart in the right place and an imposing figure that can disseminate it to a wide audience.
Nagraj sets off with both in his pocket. You needed an Amitabh Bachchan to stand tall and boom, ‘No means No’ for the message in Shoojit Sircar’s Pink to be heard. And you need Amitabh Bachchan’s presence to bring the audience from one side of the wall to empathise with what’s happening on the other side.
The biopic on social worker Vijay Barse who brought together slum kids and infused hope into their otherwise doomed lives, gets its energy from Bachchan playing the motivator and a bunch of well-cast youngsters as social outcasts. Metaphorically scaling the wall to divert their attention from sniffing whitener, robbing coal from trains, fighting viciously and walking around with chains and bats, Vijay Sir inspires them to use their energies to play football. A game for which they have a natural skill.
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Nagraj makes it as uncomfortable as it really is when he goes into the slums. But under all that makes a discomfiting watch is the absence of hope, resignation to a life of being slapped around. Yes, they will be humiliated at every turn, the police will beat them up, and shaking hands with them will have you reaching for the sanitiser or the nearest box of tissues. Yes, those playing the same game on well-maintained grounds will look down on those pushing a ball on what’s a dump. And yes, it’s the privileged that’s been dumping its waste on the other side.
Visuals more than speech make their impact. Babasaheb Ambedkar and the famous blue suit that brought light into lives full of darkness and despair is a silent backdrop. Vijay Sir in his blue track suit is in the forefront beaming hope with his own flashlight, having chai with the slum kids and no, never reaching for the sanitiser. Or being judgemental even as he steers them towards better utilisation of their skills and energies.
It’s really not about playing a sport. Manjule’s tour is focussed on inequality at all levels – social, religious, financial – and the need for a level playing field.
Like ‘Zingat’, Ajay-Atul come up with an ambient musical score that matches the beats and sounds of the subject. ‘Wakda tikada’ is the new ‘Zingat’.
However, this is not a regional film and while Manjule’s destination is laudable, his long and tedious route to reach there, makes Jhund tiresome. Too many issues, stonewalling of ambitions from one Indian state to another, and several cliches about the underprivileged rising above his restraints make it seem like a needlessly long journey where the driver has lost his way.
It is in the last scene at the airport which is a fitting emotional climax and the plane flying over a wall with the warning, ‘Crossing the wall is strictly prohibited’ that Manjule returns to where he started. For what he wants to tell, Jhund is an important watch. For how laborious the process is, Manjule needed a stern editor.
Watch Jhund Trailer:
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