Movie review: Dangal

Aamir Khan emerges from his 2 year hibernation post “PK” in “Dangal” a movie of the sports genre, magnificently mixed up with a cocktail of patriotism & gender sensitivity. The “intolerance” remark cost him dearly vide a right wing backlash some time back & he appears to have taken care this time to make all the right comments that include “goose bumps” he experienced while the national anthem was played in the movie.   Not sure if it is the right wing push or the Supreme Court ruling that made people stand up twice for the national anthem: once before the movie began & later during the movie when the protagonist Geeta  wins gold at the commonwealth games. Children insisting that their reluctant parents stand up for the anthem were needless to say, a positive change.

Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan) a wrestler retires from the mat forced by circumstances: a family to feed & a truant father who admonishes him. Going about his chores along with his wife Daya Kaur (Sakshi Tanwar), he dreams of a son who shall bring laurels for the country - a gold medal for the nation – a hark back to the sentiment amongst all Indian parents who drive their children, perhaps recklessly, to fulfil the aspirations that they themselves failed to achieve.  Destiny, however, wills otherwise & Mahavir is blessed with 4 daughters. His dejection transforms to hope when his 2 elder daughters – Geeta (Fatima Sana Sheikh) & Babita (Sanya Malhotra) beat up the village boys for passing snide remarks at them.  “The blood of a wrestler flows in them” he concludes & starts training the girls in wrestling widely seen as a male sport in this country including parochial Haryana where the plot is based.

The Haryanvi lilt of the movie is enchanting & has been used extensively in movies like Matru Ki Bijli ka Mandola & Tanu Weds Manu returns in the last 5 years. Bhojpuri was used extensively in Ganga Jumna more than 5 decades back. People paid for tickets as they do so now alluding to the fact that as long as our political class stays away from dividing India on linguistic lines, Indians by nature are tolerant & language agnostic.

Coming back to the movie, despite opposition from the society that include  refusing to allow the girls to use  their akhadas, meagre financial means & his wife refusing to serve non- vegetarian fare - a prime protein requirement  for a wannabe wrestler, Mahavir fights all odds & emerges triumphant. The daughters themselves resent his strict regimen & hilariously invent excuses to avoid the pain of rigorous training which he circumvents through creative solutions; difficulty in running in pyjamas is addressed by offering them half pants & complaint of greasy hair as a consequence of fighting on the sand pits addressed by cutting their hair short.  Only when one of their friends reveals her pain at getting married off in her teens by her father while Mahavir was at least thinking about his daughters future do Geeta & Babita soften up & seriously take to training. Geeta confesses that the real “Hanikarak” Bapu was tougher than what was portrayed in the movie.

With his wards now trained in his farm backyard, Mahavir takes them to wrestling competitions - ‘Dangals” in rural parlance - to take on male counterparts, initially, only to be ridiculed by the organizers; views change when they see the economic potential of attracting larger crowds & hence greater ticket proceeds by showcasing the glamorous girls & not because of any altruistic aim of transforming society or out of genuine gender sensitivity. Incidentally, Haryana has an abysmal gender ratio & is also plagued by a high percentage of female infanticide.

The girls initially win laurels in the “Dangals’ & later in the nationals which takes Geeta to the NIS (National Institute of Sports) Patiala, Punjab.  Initially, Geeta responds positively to her coach’s attempts to force her to “Unlearn” & even takes on her father in the bargain in what is an intensely poignant scene.  However, when “aggression” - her forte - is replaced with tactical patience she starts losing international bouts. Her rapprochement with her father & how his guidance to change tactics after going through the match videos puts her on a victory path forms the remaining part of the movie. However this puts Mahavir in conflict with her coach Pramod Kadam (Girish Kulkarni). Yet, Geeta, finally, wins the Commonwealth gold, in 2010.

The movie seems to have taken some cinematic liberties deviating from reality. Mahavir in reality is a stoic man whom Aamir tries to play sensibly until the script forces him to regress into mild histrionics to tug at the heart strings of the audience. Sakshi Tanwar, caught in a rut between the demands of her husband & the pleas of her daughters plays a helpless mother to perfection. India, unfortunately, has many such mothers caught in this grind of a patriarchal world.  While Geeta won her final bout in the finals quite easily in 2010 as the score read 1-0, 7-0 unlike the score of 5-1, 4-6, 6-5 claimed in the movie & shown as a cliff-hanger of a contest – a nail biting  finish - that was only settled in the final seconds of the third round. Off course she had longer hair in the actual bout too unlike what was claimed in the movie.   It is also untrue that Geeta did not win any contests before 2010; infact, she had earlier won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championship in 2009, where she competed in the same 55kg freestyle wrestling category. The actual coach PR Sondhi has protested that he was unnecessarily shown in an unflattering light & that Mahavir was not locked up during the finals but was in fact in the crowd cheering his daughter.  In Mahavir Singh Phogat’s biography, ‘Akhada: The Authorized Biography of Mahavir Singh Phogat’, Saurabh Duggal confirms the coach’s assertion.

Aamir has confessed that the movie mixes fact with fiction while retaining the essence of the original story. Despite the deviations the movie is a dish to be savored for 2 reasons: Aamirs’s body transformations as part of “method acting” to fit the different age profiles of Mahavir , perhaps an ode to Robert De Niro in the 1980 Martin Scorsese film "Raging bull"; & a reminder to society to shun gender bias for a girl child can bring, perhaps, more laurels too. Hope the audience is listening.