Paathshala : A lesson for Institutes

Always, always it annoys me a lot when I see Kids in reality shows or the competitions. How can you make a kid 9 year old, dance to typical Bollywood item numbers? How can you make them 'sing' those songs? Let kids be kids. Don't spoil their invaluable childhood on the silly things which can ruin their lives later on. Because Glamour is a sweet poison, which once tasted will never be forgotten.You can learn more about how these types of things positively and negatively affect children at www.childpsychology.net

Another annoying thing is Institutes these days. How they emphasize on making their kids versatile [or say claims to make them] in every field, no matter that kid is capable to handle such pressure, capable to cope up studies with extra curricular things. And the institutes that are started after calculating profit margins. I mean, c'mon, is this a factory or something? I don't feel only these 5 star schools can make great next generation.

And I praise Director Milind Ukey and Producer Ahmed Khan; for taking these points into account of Paathshala's script. Which is rather flawed, but not in terms of storyline. Paathshala is really an honest effort when you see how it doesn't try to preach anywhere. Has its hearty moments and delights you in many scenes. People compare [obviously] with TZP, but I think this is pretty different thing over here. TZP was all about parental pressure while here that thing is totally missing. Here the main issue is commercialization of education.

Performances are quite good. I wish Nana Patekar could have some more scenes than annoying Saurabh Shukla. Nana had a nice climax scene though. Shahid acts well as a sincere English teacher who loves music and kids. Thank God the romantic track is un-developed with Aayesha Takia. [lovely she is, as always]. Kids Swini, Dwij, Ali Haji, Avika Gor and many moe - were totally fun.

Still I was dissatisfied with how the movie shaped up. Ahmed Khan had nice story which would be great if Ahmed himself had not written screenplay by himself. Movie doesn't engage viewer completely like [couldn't help] TZP does. When you are making movie about children, you must involve audience with them, otherwise it would fail. Also another thing to note is-scenes about torture [not harsh, but. ..] shall not come one by one, its annoying. No one wants to see sad kids in scenes that comes one by one. Though it had nice intention to show whats happening to today's kids, but not pleasant to see on screen.

Still, its the music score by Hanif Sheikh who saved this movie for me. [also, quite nice length of movie helped]. Songs are few, only four, but integrated very well. I kept on thinking how would they put the romantic song in this school movie? but what i saw was cute. Loved the song 'mujhe teri' on screen too. Also 'Khushnuma' and 'Aye Khuda' makes it pleasant to see on screen with all the kids. Fun !

So, final words- you must be confused by this review whether to go for the movie or not?! If you are fan for movies about kids, [I am, always] - you'll like this.

My Rating : 3 / 5