I watched ‘Apna Asman’, a film by adman turned film director Kaushik Roy (currently President-Brand Strategy and Marketing Communication at Reliance Industries). The film is about an autistic child and the trauma and he and his parents undergo. The film is about a teenager's journey to be loved and admired for what he is rather then what his parents want him to be.
The movie is set in the city of Mumbai and is a modern insight on a young couple’s desires and aspirations, true of any modern day parent today.
The story is of Ravi Kumar (Irrfan Khan) his wife Padmini (Shobhana) and their teenage son BuddhiRaj (Dhruv Piyush Panjwani). Khan works for a plastics company and runs the family financially. Padmini his wife who is a classical dancer quits dancing after marriage to take care of the family and her son.
The couple is heart broken when their son is detected mild autistic and a slow learner. Buddhi’s only connection with the world is through his paintings. But his parents are not willing to accept his short comings and encourage him in his paintings. His retarded condition leaves his father broken with guilt and his mother who was looking for a bright future from the boy. The film maker has brought out the frustrations of the parents very well. So much so to the extent that they get carried away by a fake doctor who claims to cure brain disorders with an injection he has invented.
Despite being warned by their doctor (Dr Sen played by Rajat Kapoor) not to use their son as a guinea pig, the father manages to get the injection for the boy and in an inebriated state injects the medicine into the boy.
To their utter amazement the boy recovers and is normal. But the normalcy comes with its own set of consequences. From here the story takes some drastic turns. The boy who returns to normalcy is shown to have changed so drastically that it is a little too much to take.
The boy turns to be a big celebrity mathematician magician and is called ‘Arya Bhatt’. He is shown to become nasty having forgotten his past, he thinks his parents are imposters and are after his money. This is where I felt the film needed better treatment as the director goes a little overboard in showing the change in the boy. But finally all’s well that end’s well.
The casting is brilliant with Irrfan Khan, Shobhana and Rajat Kapoor having performed brilliantly. Dhruv Panjwani is good as an autistic child but I did not like his performance when he changes to be a normal teenager.
More than its portrayal of how a couple copes with their autism-affected child, the film touches a chord with its message on parenting. Apna Asmaan takes this story line “How far would you go to make your child a genius?” The film-maker gives it the sensibility of an urban thriller and has tried hard to make it an entertaining yet thought-provoking film about parents and their demands of their children.
Inspired by his own son ‘Orko’ Kaushik Roy’s first attempt to deal with a serious and intense subject of this nature is fairly good. I think it is a must for all parents to watch and learn from it.
Umang Pahwa is the producer of the film. Barun Mukherji is the head of the cinematography department and director Kaushik Roy has conceptualized and penned the story of the film. The music by Leslie Lewis is good.
The film that was released on September 7th has been screened at several international film festivals and has won the ‘The German Star of India’ at the Stuttgart Festival.
The film has been distributed in India by Sony Pictures.
The film might not be commercially viable but it could appeal to the serious film goers.
By,
Anusha
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