Gulmohar: Best Hindi Film of 2023

Do you watch Hindi films? Have you watched Gulmohar, which won the Best Hindi Film award at the 70^th National Film Award, held on 16 Aug 2024? If you watched the film and loved it, read no further. Do not read this blog If you plan to watch and prefer to watch without being prejudiced by a review.

Sanjukta was keen on watching this web-film streaming on Disney-Hotstar, for which I bought a Subscription for 3 months for INR 299, but Hotstar insisted on ‘Auto-Debit’ to my bank account till 2049 (but why, and how does Hotstar know that I’ll be around till that date? I must raise a protest with the OTT provider and the Regulatory Authority, after I finish this blog.)

I am no film critic, and the views mentioned below are mine and mine only to which my spouse is unlikely to agree. Haan ki Na, if I ask, her reply is predictable!

Cast

The film has an impressive cast- Sharmila Tagore (Kusum), Manoj Bajpayee (Arun), Simran (Indu), Suraj Sharma (Aditya), Amol Palekar (Sudhakar), Kaveri Seth (Divya), and others.

The film, mimicking the metro city which is the venue, has a high-density of characters. I counted twenty-six and gave up! The leading characters are given reasonable space and time, but that for the other characters is strictly rationed by the writer who is also the Director. Why so many characters? Two plausible reasons: First, Gulmohar houses an affluent joint family of six which has hired three full-time household help not including the driver, three security guards, and three or more malis for the large, manicured garden of the sprawling mansion. Second, the film ends with a fun-filled Holi revelry for which several dancing bodies were needed.

Plot

The sale of Gulmohar, the House of Batras, to a builder (‘a goonda’ who apparently coerced Kusum, the widow, for sale of the property) is supposedly a symbol of the tragic disintegration of the fabled joint family; but the film fails to evoke any sense of loss. Three generations of Batras lived under the same roof, but without the glue of deep love and affection, respect, regard, and consideration for other members of the family who may have a different point of view. Is dissent disobedience? If the son thinks differently than his father, and if the daughter has a different sexual inclination; will that usher in anarchy and bring the roof down?

Anyway, the dissolution of the original joint family had begun much earlier when Kusum had successfully persuaded the patriarch to move over to Delhi from Jamshedpur where fourteen members of the family somehow lived in a one-bedroom house packed like sardines in a tin! That dispersal of the joint family does not at all look bad since the Batras blossomed in business at sadda Dilli, except to Sudhakar, the old man who still nurses a grievance for failing to achieve his dream of joining the IAS!

The plot revolves around Batra patriarch’s last will and testament hand-written by himself on the eve of his death. Gulmohar will pass on, not to Arun, his adopted son, nor to Kusum, his wife; but to Sudhakar, his brother who has the family’s khoon (blood). Arun is the ideal son- meek, obedient, deferential, devoted, sincere, hardworking, and successful at running his factory. So, why did the patriarch disinherit Arun? Was the old man punishing Sharmila for her three miscarriages and consequent failure to give him a son of his own? How cruel and misogynistic! How would the inheritance of Gulmohar by Sudhakar glorify the great Batra family? Isn't that an insensitive reiteration of exclusive patriarchal rights to family wealth and property and denial of women's rights? Why did the patriarch publicly adopt Arun, pretended to treat him as his own son, but disowned him just before his death? A mystery which the story shoves under the carpet.

The plot is littered with the debris of multiple abandonments- Premi Dhaba-wala (veteran actor Vinod Nagpal of "Hum Log' fame) abandoning his new-born son (Arun), Batra patriarch abandoning his adopted son (Arun), Aditya choosing to move out of Gulmohar and thus abandoning his father (Arun), Sudhakar seeking legal possession of Gulmohar and forcing Arun and his family’s abandonment of Gulmohar, and finally, Kusum sneaking away to Pondicherry, not to meditate and pray but to reconnect with Supriya Palekar, her old flame of adolescent days!

Sub-plots

Just too many. As though the writer has sought help of ChatGPT to write a story and script with a bunch of named sub-plots:  

Father-Son problematic relations (Deceased Mr Batra, the patriarch and Arun, the adopted son; Arun and his son Aditya; Arun’s biological father- Premi Dhaba-wala and Arun; Sudhakar Batra and his son; Sudhakar’s son and his grandson;

Spousal relations (Dead Batra and his wife-Kusum; Arun and his wife; Aditya and his wife; Arun’s cousin and his wife and their son and daughter-in-law). Mercifully, Sudhakar Batra’s wife, and Arun’s biological mother are not brought in to add to the crowd of characters.

Lesbianism: muted for Kusum who mentions the unseen hand of destiny (“It was meant to be!) exonerating any imagined blame for human agency! Her adolescent flash back is supposedly to ‘support’ Divya, the youngest of the Batra clan, who has just discovered her different sexual orientation.

Startup struggle and anxiety: what’s better- a low-paying salaried job or the uncertainty of startup funding and success but with potential of big bucks; further aggravated by Aditya’s very persuasive wife insisting upon booking a flat which is beyond their means.

Love-life of household help: Reshma-Devendra-Irfan love triangle, and the minor ‘communal’ skirmish.

Conclusion

Excellent performance by Sharmila Tagore, Manoj Bajpayee, and Amol Palekar; but the story-line is weak, the plot convoluted, the numerous sub-plots a perplexing maze, progress slow and meandering, and the end abrupt with a deus ex machina brought in for a ‘happy ending.’

The table that overturned that toppled the glass of water that smudged the handwritten will and rendered it illegible and infructuous nullifying the evil machinations of the villainous Batra duo- the deceased patriarch and his aggrieved younger brother. Serves the deceased Batra patriarch right for public adoption of an abandoned child, and decades later, his pusillanimous denial of inheritance of Gulmohar to Arun, his one and only son!

Gulmohar (the Flame tree) is an ironical name for the film with an incendiary plot that unravels in a brick-and-mortar mansion sans love and bonding.

Of all the Hindi films of 2023 which the jury evaluated, they found Gulmohar the best. If this is the best film of the year, I'm rather disappointed. My Rating for the film is 5/10. Is that why they did not include me in the panel of juries?

Should you watch the film? Decide for yourself. Go ahead, you may enjoy the excellent performance by Sharmila, this blogger's demure dreamgirl with those adorable dimples in Aradhana (1969)!

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