My Review of “Maine Gandhi ko Nahi Maara”
I recently watched the movie, “Maine Gandhi ko Nahi Maara”. Because I research in Dementia, I try to apprise myself about the real world aspects of Dementia and familiarize self with the lives of those who live with Dementia. In this context, movies have truly been helpful to me, some more than other. In this essay, I will review the movie in the context of whatever little I know about Dementia.
The movie is about a retired professor of Hindi Language, who lives with his daughter and a son. He has started to show some unusual behavioural signs in his day-to-day life. I will not go into details of these forgetful incidences, but to name a few : going to college despite being retired, entering into a Chemistry class and starting with Hindi poetry lessons, poor retention of short-term memory, forgetting that his wife is no more, etc. The daughter is worried because she notices her father behaving strangely and in unprecedented ways. Naturally, she is seeking respite for her father by visiting a doctor.
The doctor, however, has simply given medications but the diagnosis is not clear to the family. And I think to the doctor also. With no proper explanation as to what is happening with her father, the daughter is doubly distraught. First because of his odd behavioural changes which are becoming more prominent with time, and second because there is no information available to them about the disease diagnosis or condition. In such a situation, the daughter is looking in the dark for something to hold on to.
Meanwhile she is trying very hard to get hold of a better doctor for her father, a doctor who can objectively tell them what is happening. Through her network, she is able to find one. The doctor starts to understand what the father is undergoing, and eventually tells the daughter about dementia. Thus, from the story line, it is clear that people do find it hard to have a diagnosis of dementia and the General Physicians are often not able to make such diagnosis. After the diagnosis is made, things start to make sense for everyone in the family.
Gradually, they also start to take precautions as not to agitate the person, or force them to do things they do not want to do, become cautious about his safety in public-places.
Thus, it can be well-observed that the diagnosis of dementia, even though brings lots of struggles for the family, but it provides a direction in which the efforts can now be channelized, which was not the case before the identification of the disease.
During this time, the father has started to develop delusions and hallucinations, and one particular one is, “Maine Gandhi ko nahi maara” or “I have not killed Gandhi”. So, once it so happens that daughter’s boyfriend comes with his parents to her home to finalize marriage. But during the gathering, the father’s delusion soars high and he becomes aggressive when the guest puts ashtray on the newspaper photograph of Gandhiji. The Dementia patient is not able to control his aggression on this fact, and bursts out loudly asking the guests to leave for not being able to respect Gandhiji.
This compels the daughter to tell the parents of her boyfriend that her father has dementia, a brain illness. They instead become skeptic of it and think of it as a mental illness, and become apprehensive about it being genetic. Thus, the marriage never takes place because the parents of the boyfriend have developed the fear that dementia is genetic and it may enter into their family lineage should the marriage happen. This event indicates a second roadblock to dementia and that is stigma and equating it with being mad or mentally ill. The family suffers due to this and the woman loses someone she truly loves.
Personally, I feel that the daughter is the one who suffers the most throughout the movie. My heart is constantly with her than with her father. As a caretaker, as a daughter, sister, potential spouse and a working woman, she juggles constantly in her life and due to which she is fatigued and burned out. And when her marriage does not go through, she is deeply agonized. But this agony is quickly replaced by the caretaking responsibilities for her father. She cannot afford to grieve. Moreover, her mother has died, so there is no one to look after her father. Her personal life suffers immensely, but assistance does come in form of specialist doctor.
In parallel, the dementia progresses and the patient becomes much worse. And because he is hallucinating, he seeks respite under the statue of Gandhiji, whenever he becomes overwhelmed with the feeling of guilt for killing Gandhiji. Due to these delusions, he is not able to live a normal life, and lives of ones around him are disrupted, mostly his family. His younger son is particularly impatient and tells his sister to send the father to a nursing care home. The sister is outraged at this suggestion and does not want it to happen. Meanwhile, the doctor who is seeing the father suggests that they should try to investigate the root of her father’s delusion of killing Gandhiji.
With some history check, they are able to trace a friend of the father. He tells them of an incidence in which the father had darted a photo of Gandhiji while he was a child and incidentally that was the same day and time, when Gandhiji was assassinated by Nathuram Godse. At that time, his father (father of dementia patient), a follower of Gandhiji had construed this event as a misfortune and abandoned the child (the dementia patient in his childhood). This cast a deep impression on the child, and once he had dementia, this traumatic memory took shape in the form of delusions and hallucinations.
To absolve the father of his guilt, a fake courtroom drama is conducted and eventually the father is acquitted of murder charges. But in the court room, a philosophical monologue happens. When he has been acquitted for not killing Gandhiji, the dementia patient begins a philosophical monologue on how everyone, every person in the society has killed Gandhiji.
I have some serious problems with this part of the movie. Given that he is an advanced stage dementia patient, it is strange to see his thinking abilities taking shape of philosophical tones. The direction of the movie shifts during that time from dementia to a social wake up call on how the ideals and morals of Gandhiji have not been observed in the society. I think a huge mix up happened in this situation and perhaps could have been avoided if a dementia doctor was included in the study.
Or may be there was an inclusion, but from what I have read, this scene in the movie looks very odd. I could have brushed it aside by saying it is fiction, but for a movie based on dementia, facts are the most important because society hardly knows about dementia and there exists very poor awareness. The movie ends with the father asking his daughter to take him away from the courtroom, and in the next scene both are near ocean.
Another problem that I could feel with the movie was its title, “Maine Gandhi ko Nahi Maara” . For a movie based on dementia, this title is highly misleading. I am not saying that the title needs to be dementia-specific, it could be neutral also, but this title actually tells some other story line only. Ask anyone about this title, and people would mostly say that the movie is linked to some biography. For a long time, I was aware of the movie name, but only when I read the synopsis of it accidentally on Prime Video, did I come to know that the movie was on dementia.
We need more such movies in India, but with a much more informed title, than the one which indicates something else entirely. I am not questioning the creativity here, or resisting it, but for something as sensitive as dementia and not much talked about, a subtle indication could be helpful to draw more people to the creative arts. For example, I recently watched a play on YouTube on dementia, and it was titled, “The World Turned Upside Down”. I was fascinated by this title, and could not stop thinking over how accurate it was. The world does turn upside down for the person with dementia and also their family members.
Movies and creative productions are a fantastic way to create awareness and sensitise masses about dementia. We need more of them. “Maine Gandhi ko Nahi Maara” is a movie in the same direction, and it does a fantastic job despite faltering at few places. But hey! That’s ok. The world is a little better due to this movie, people know about dementia due to this movie. And I am writing a review on it to be shared with so many people! I recommend everyone to watch this movie and get to know the pain associated with the most devastating diagnosis ever — dementia. But with awareness and preparedness we can manage and lessen the pain, together!
