Anandi Gopal — A Marathi Movie That Will Appeal To Your Heart And Mind In Equal Measures

There are very few movies which are made with utmost finesse and perfection together with an appeal that touches your heart and scratches the brain cells as well. What if you were also presented with humour along with all this? Wouldn’t that be a rare piece? Anandi Gopal does it and how beautifully does it touch you.

Little Background

I’m not a regular Marathi movie viewer. This was, in fact, my third Marathi movie in the hall. Other two being Sairat and Natasamrat, both of which were fine movies in their own ways. I had seen Anandi Gopal’s listing before but never saw anything beyond its poster on Bookmyshow but last night for reasons I cannot think of I played its trailer and immediately I wanted to watch the movie. The trailer was good of course but it was the real person on whom this movie is based. Dr Anandi Joshi. Long time back I had read about her somewhere along with an old photograph of her which I vividly remember. The face, sari, that attitude, simplistic yet confident. But again, except for a few lines that she was the first women doctor of India, I did not know much of her. Her image although had stayed with me. Time flew and I mostly forgot about her until last night when I saw the trailer.

When you are watching this movie in the hall on the big screen, you will know what I mean when I tell you how each frame in the first half is shot with such brilliance that appears like you are shown some great photographs one after the other. You feel like to take your camera out and click as the film rolls (I didn’t!). Then the way camera moves from one frame to another, this is at times a movement from one room to another, one part of the frame to another in the 1880s. Filmmakers have taken utmost care in designing the sets and costumes. You won’t see any out of place person in clothes that seem off from the time where this story is from. Dialogues are great (at least in the first half) with regards to the era and how they add life to scenes unlike biopics from Bollywood where dialogues are sometimes written so as to suit the current climate and not for the story in question. Bollywood greatly misses the context and time their stories are set when writing dialogues, good that this Marathi movie does not make that error. The movie just goes from one part of her life to another, showing with ease what was it like for a girl to dream in that era.

This is a story from the 1860s to 1880s when women’s education wasn’t just frowned upon but was unimagined of. Just think of what her mother says when her-husband-to-be insists on her education — that if she got educated, she would also try to get some job which is a thought she cannot think by herself because, wait, her daughter will then indulge in adultery! The film takes the viewer through her struggles not with pompous Bollywood like cringing oh-look-how-painful-her-life-was cry-fest but with humorous scenes. You enjoy every bit of it as film moves. It is tragic but filmmakers have ensured you have a smile on your face as film advances. So be it her parents frowning, people in society protesting, getting bullied in school, getting rusticated, travelling outside India, being asked to convert into Christianity, a tragic life unfolds but it doesn’t make you feel sorry for until the final frames starts to roll. That is where I got my eyes a bit wet. I’m sure you are blessed with a strong heart than mine and won’t have to deal with it.

I’m so glad someone thought of making this movie. She lived some 160 years before us. But just look around. Even today we are talking about giving women equal rights. Sex ratios are still skewed. There are still men who want to marry a girl who isn’t as educated as themselves, women are still not allowed to enter few places thanks to culture, society and tradition which even then with their hydra-heads stopped her at every step.

Anandi’s story is incomplete without Gopal, her husband or it is as much of his story as hers. Just imagine a husband who insists to her parents that he will agree to marry her only and only if they allow her to get educated. After marriage, he gets transfers from one place to another from his government job so she gets chance at schooling. He fights with villagers who oust him from society, they ridicule him and his other son but he does not give up on her education. A husband who cooks and washes clothes so she can concentrate on her studying. At the end she studies and gets herself the degree which is higher than him. She studies more than her husband, he who insisted on her education but he does not sulk. He takes pride in her and gives her the credit of it all. I doubt if we have such men even today.

Bhagyashree Milind who has played the role of Anandi and Lalit Prabhakar who has played her husband Gopalrao have done a commendable job of essaying the respective roles. The ease with which Prabhakar moves from a stern and violent husband into this humane caring one after knowing she is pregnant is just awe-inspiring. And Bhagyashree, she makes you forget she is essaying a role and makes you believe in the character she is and that’s a great mark of an actor. I also liked the role played by his first wife’s widowed mother. And Anandi’s mother although she didn’t have much of screen space. Add to it all, there is this great background score to match everything that’s running before our eyes which moves from flute to tabla to other sophisticated instruments and voices. At no point does it appear that background music is more than what is required or it is overpowering the scenes on the screen. Everyone and everything in the film is how it should be. I just loved the shots. How much and what was there in the shots (on the screen) to digest for the viewer. A complete meal that pleases all the senses.

Go watch it.

Also, sit down and enjoy the credits. We are treated to photographs of exceptional women who have achieved big in their life. Try to read and assimilate as many names as you could. Think for a moment how many names you were aware of and how many you did not. Go watch the movie and try to watch it in the theatres for it deserves its watch on the big screen.

Let me know in comments your thoughts on the movie or any tidbits you know of her life.

Note: The movie in theaters comes with English subtitles in case you are worried it is Marathi movie and you do not understand the language.

The first three women doctors of their respective nations.