On the surface level, Vaathi (released bilingually as Sir in Telugu) appears to be about the right to education for all. Dhanush plays Bala, a maths teacher dispatched to a small town on the Andhra-Tamil Nadu border to teach in a government school. Bala is a poor imitation of the Kollywood swagger of teacher characters such as Kamal Haasan’s Selvam (Nammavar, 1994) 0r Vijay’s JD (Master, 2021). He immediately becomes a hero among his new students. He’s furiously opposed to privatisation in education and spends the movie locking horns with Tirupathi (a criminally misused Samuthirakani) to ensure children from low-income families are able to study. The film even takes a sly dig at NEET via the now scrapped TNPCEE.
All good things. So, one would assume that Tollywood director Venky Atluri would have an understanding about the systemic barriers that block access to education. Yet, the director in a recent interview said, “I will remove reservation. Reservation [should be] based on financial status and not caste.” The film, when you can sift through the dull contents of a poorly written and convoluted script, is primarily concerned only about class. It is a bland paean to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota, which in itself is casteist. It’s a shame that Dhanush’s entry into the Telugu movie industry has to be marked by a film of such mediocrity and confused politics.
Vaathi’s acknowledgement of caste, on the other hand, is patronising and minimal. The director seems to think that a lecture from Dhanush and a trick he plays on the students is enough to bring down centuries of segregationist practices. The lowered-caste students have little to no scenes where they aren’t shown as hapless and needing rescuing from Bala. The hero’s own caste location is deliberately ambiguous. His supposed punch-line, “Don’t sell education like a product, give it free like prasadam,” is enough to tell you that the director has little understanding of rights or politics.
Education isn’t a dole nor does it flow from the gods, as the movie suggests with its repeated reference to Saraswathi. Sentimentalisation in the name of religion seems to have blinded the director to the fact that education is a basic right, separate from religion. A right, that caste continues to deny to millions. As one Twitter user, reacting to Venky Atluri’s interview recommended, he should read Dr BR Ambedkar before making movies on access to education.
One also wonders at Dhanush’s choice to work in this film. Given his star status and having worked in anti-caste films by Maari Selvaraj and Vetrimaaran, does the actor not know better than to endorse a script of such poor political and story-telling quality? Even the role written for him does little service to his expansive acting range. Dhanush is an undeniably talented star, capable of fanning viewers into righteous fury or breaking our hearts with his performance. Why he’d pick a script so comprehensively bad, is baffling.
Speaking of wasted talent, Samuthirakani too gets dealt a bad hand. He is another actor capable of great depth with an equal ability for comedy. Those who’ve seen him in Aelay (2021), Kaala (2018), or many of his other well-written roles can attest to his acting calibre. As Tirupathi, the main antagonist in Vaathi, Samuthirakani mostly comes off as an unintentionally laughable and cartoonish character, except for the one fleeting moment in which he is referred to as someone worse than Dronacharya – the Brahmin archer from the Mahabaratha who demanded the thumb of a tribal prince, Eklavya, in exchange for teaching him archery. Nothing about Tirupathi is remotely threatening. Without a foil we can take seriously, the film flounders to give its hero a convincing arc of defeat and then victory.
Samyuktha, as Meenakshi, Bala’s love interest and colleague, doesn't have much to do than give the hero a firm lecture or two. Otherwise she cheers from the sidelines or disappears from the story entirely.
Musically, ‘Naadodi Mannan’ and ‘Va Vaathi’ stand out from GV Prakash’s soundtrack. This is one of the times a film’s music album is a far better experience than the movie itself. Vaathi even attempts a tongue-in-cheek reference to Master, when the ‘JD Soundtrack’ plays briefly at the beginning of the film. Unfortunately, Vaathi isn’t even half as entertaining as the Vijay-starrer, despite the few other subtle references.