Super 30 – Lagaan of Education .

Stories of achieving success against all odds make great stories. Usually there is a noble and brilliant protagonist fallen on bad ways who in a triggering moment decides to pick up a challenge and turn his students/followers/disciples around. There are Hollywood stories galore and closer home there has been Chak De India, Bhag Milkha Bhag, and Mary Kom…all stories of people achieving greatness in the face of harrowing odds.

But Super 30 moves out from the sports field where such stories usually abound to education where a live story continues to create waves in real life in a curious mix of evoking sense of awe and dangerously treading the line of negative feedback due to attacks by alleged vested interest.

A brilliant mathematician born in Bihar yearns to earn fame but is harnessed back by the cruel pull of poverty. The efforts fail in the face of touching efforts by his father who works in a postal department and his admission letter to the University of Cambridge.

Hritik Roshan stripped of all his glamour, completely and sadly devoid of all his exquisite dance moves or action scenes approaches with utter sincerity, the role of the poor mathematician Anand Kumar, who is wallowing in tragic circumstances till he hits jackpot with a local business of training children for IIT. But somewhere his value system catches up with him and he is seized with the need to create a platform for poor but brilliant children who can attempt the IIT entrance and get into the premier institute. A tall task if one looks around at the diligent approach adopted by special classes that train students from a very early age to crack the entrance exams. But then Kumar is no lame duck and evolves ingenious ways to keep the special free classes that he starts for the economically poor class. There is almost a vengeful streak in Kumar to ensure his class succeeds

But before that happens he has to go through a lot of trials and tribulations that includes strong threats from politicians who run educational business establishments and find his free education a serious impediment for their money making.

How Kumar goes about it and continues to this date forms the crux of the movie. You feel a sense of appreciation for Hritik one of our most handsome action heroes who boldly takes on meaningful roles and takes a crack at making honest contribution to cinema.

He is supremely sincere in his efforts here and the story which is exaggerated as are most of these “winning against all odds” stories still holds your attention. True to their journey they also make attempts to expose the “Dhanda” of education.

You cannot but remember Lagaan as the leader of the pack Aamir puts together a bunch with varied skills to counter a skilled rich team. Anand Kumar does it here for education and his knowledge and efforts are truly laudable. The story is apparently known to skim over details which are not palatable and proceeds to silly eye rolling scenes where students fight back Hooligans with scientific tricks. Yet Kumar’s teaching approach using day to day awareness of activities around us is commendable.

What is sad is like Lagaan we hardly remember a single student and that is because the camera is busy following Anand Kumar all around and it reduces the impact the tragic stories of the children could have had.

It is certainly detoxifying to watch this after the controversial Kabir Singh which aroused a nationwide debate.

Watching the movie also raises the question of whether the true worth of a future india is in glamorizing a handful of outstanding institutes or in creating bountiful of good educational institutes all over the country so that only a handful are not made privileged to learn and earn.

Watch it as the Lagaan of Education and for Hritik’s earnestness