Sudhir Mishra's film Serious Men opens with a song that goes "Raath kaala chaatha jis par ithne saare ched/ tezaab udela kisne is par jaanu na paaye" (The umbrella of night has so many holes, who poured acid on it, is an unsolved mystery) and as it plays, Ayyan Mani (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) narrates in the background: “I like this song very much. I don't know why. I don’t know its meaning. And a song which we don't understand can be played in all situations. Life is also such — complex. We are born without a meaning and die without one. Like how my grandfather died. While he was returning to the village on a train, he unknowingly boarded the first class compartment. And somebody jokingly said in his ears, 'Dada, you have boarded the Brahmin compartment. And he died of a heart attack'. Now what is the meaning of this? Nothing. That’s why I like this song.”
This narration at the beginning perfectly encapsulates the film, which is hollow in its understanding of caste and dangerously makes light of caste-based discrimination.
The film has released at a time when a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gangraped and killed by four Thakur men in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. The Thakur community has publicly supported the accused; the state, headed by a Chief Minister who is also of the Thakur caste, has been accused of shielding the perpetrators in many ways — by denying that the woman was raped; not following due procedure to establish the rape; by allegedly intimidating and beating up the family members of the victim for speaking to the media. Given this, the attempt to deny the roots of caste-based oppression makes the film a disturbing watch.
Serious Men is an adaptation of Manu Joseph’s novel of the same name, and stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Ayyan Mani, Indira Tiwari as his wife Oja (a very unusual name for a Tamilian even if she grew up in Bombay), Aakshath Das as their son Adi Mani, Nasser as Dr Arvind Acharya (Ayyan’s boss) and Shweta Basu Prasad as Anuja Dhavre among others.
The film is about how Ayyan Mani (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a Dalit man, who works as a personal assistant to Dr Arvind Acharya (Nasser), a Brahmin scientist in a national science institute, aspires to get the best education possible for his son so that he can climb up the social ladder.
In his traumatic childhood, Ayyan loses his pregnant mother for the sake of his education in a bizarre incident. Just as his father had valued his education over the sake of even his wife's health, Ayyan is determined to get his son, Adi Mani, enrolled in an English convent so that the latter can one day become a boss in a lucrative position; someone who can dictate terms and call anyone who challenges him fancy phrases like "primitive minds".
However, Adi is not a bright student and is denied admission in the school. His boss, an alumnus of the same institution, declines to give a recommendation, stating that he does so only for ‘meritorious’ students. The school too, does not acknowledge the fact that Adi Mani comes from a marginalised community, and that his parents are barely educated. Ayyan, who has faced discrimination throughout his life, does not want his son to suffer the same and be denied the joys which he never had. He therefore commits a fraud which snowballs into a major crisis that would not only affect his son and family but also others surrounding him.
Nawazuddin's performance as a street smart crook is, as expected, good. The performances of Indira and Aakshath Das are phenomenal. Nasser, as a grumpy boss and fraudster, is top-notch. The scene between him and his colleague, Dr Namboodri played by actor Udayabanu Maheshwaran, where they nonchalantly pull each other's leg in Tamil in front of a Minister who does not know the language, really brings the chuckles.
However, the film's confused understanding of caste proves to be its undoing. It mixes up class and caste, in the same vein as the story narrated by the protagonist about the 'first class' compartment being a 'Brahmin compartment'. Terming the death of a man who succumbed to a heart attack out of utter shock as 'nothing' is also insensitive. Did Ayyan's grandfather dread being brutally attacked by the passengers for 'polluting' the compartment? How can such violence be dismissed as 'nothing'? It's inconceivable that a middle-class, upper caste person would have met such a death for the 'grave crime' of entering such a compartment. Perhaps novelist Manu Joseph and director Sudhir Mishra should have examined this deeply before calling it 'nothing'.
Though the film talks about the oppression that Dalits face, it does so through a Savarna gaze. For instance, in one scene, Anuja Dhavre (Shweta Basu), a Dalit woman and aspiring politician who doesn’t like being seen as a victim, says, “no Dalit woman victim card shit for me” while instructing her staff. While talking about the numerous horrific things that Ayyan faced because of the caste he was born into, the film dishonestly equates caste with class. So, when Ayyan and his wife go to a posh hotel, Ayyan looking at the kids playing in the swimming pool says: “I am a 2G (second generation), when my son gets educated he will become 3G. It takes four generations for us to sit and do nothing like these people.” Is this the naivete of the character or the creators? Surely, a Dalit man would know that caste is much more complex than that? As JNU student leader and PhD scholar Rahul Sonpimple said at an event, "Class doesn't exist in its absolute sense in India." He went on to explain why: “A Dalit middle-class can buy a water bottle in a mall, but when he goes to a village, he cannot drink water from the temple. However, a financially poor person from an upper caste can go and dance in a temple.”
The book Serious Men was written by Manu Joseph in 2010. Even if one were to excuse the writer for not understanding caste and how it operates back then, six years later, Manu wrote an infamous article in the aftermath of Rohith Vemula’s death.
Rohith was a Dalit scholar at the University of Hyderabad, who took his life in 2016 amply making it clear that he was subjected to caste-based and systemic discrimination in the institution. A few days before he took his life, he had written to the UoH vice-chancellor Dr Appa Rao: “Please serve 10 mg of Sodium Azide to all Dalit students at the time of admission. With direction to use when they feel like reading Ambedkar” and “Supply a nice rope to the rooms of all Dalit students.” Manu had argued that Rohith's death was as much about mental health issues and depression as it was about oppression, effectively underplaying the caste-based discrimination and exclusion that the young man had faced before his death. Rohith was denied a space to stay in at the institution; he was also subjected to other restrictions like not being allowed to participate in the students’ elections and limiting his interactions with fellow students. It mirrored a social boycott which Dalits often face in villages for acts of defiance and transgression.
Sudhir Mishra's adaptation, unfortunately, has not evolved from Manu's book or article.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.