'All India Rank' Is A Welcome Interlude To New India

Varun Grover empathises with everyone, even Indian parents. One writer aptly described Gover’s directorial debut All India Rank as a coming-of-age tale of parents. Like the director himself, the parents depicted in the film are gentle souls whose preferred mode of operation is non-violent. They feel awkward even to say the word ‘sex’ out aloud.

In an ocean of films and TV series where Indian parents are shown casually assaulting their adult children, the duo in All India Rank are refreshingly pacifist. Unlike the violent patriarchs of Kohraa or the ever berating mother of Dahaad—the serial killer in Dahaad too finds his job is made easy because of the intense pressure parents put on daughters to marry—Grover sketches a weary couple who put their lives on pause, as their son struggles to live out his father’s Indian Institute of Technology dream.

“I wanted to examine why parents feel obligated to send their kids into this machinery,” Grover, himself a civil engineer from IIT (BHU), told The Indian Express before the launch of the film. “I wanted to do something about that time of my life and connect it with a dysfunctional family dealing with their own issues. What I also figured was that it is not just the kid who writes an exam, it is the entire family writing that exam.”

The film depicts a year in the life of Vivek, an ordinary student, as he reluctantly leaves the embrace of his mother in Lucknow to enrol in a punishing IIT coaching class in Rajasthan’s Kota in 1997-1998. Grover attended a similar coaching class around the time depicted in the film though his parents never forced him to. In reality, Vinod Kumar Bansal, the man credited with making Kota the hub of IIT coaching (and who graduated from the same alma mater as Grover) had hundreds of students by this time. Now, lakhs of students travel to Kota to be better prepared for competitive exams. Many are unable to withstand the pressure—from their parents and from living in this cut-throat environment 24/7.

At a time when we are bombarded with saffron strongmen, hateful loudspeakers and chest-thumping political theatre that plays out at full volume on our screens and streets every single day, Grover’s film—though it is about the way parents try to erase the perceived mistakes of their own lives through their children—makes its point quietly and without assaulting already overstimulated audiences.

Parental pressure may be manifested in moderate tones but its underlying theme—the status of the father depends on the son—remains the same. “Your photo should come in the newspapers, I’ve told everyone you’ll top,” Vivek’s father tells him. Vivek struggles to address his father, beginning letters home with the awkward ‘respected papa’. It’s a film about how we don’t let our children dream—instead weighing them down with responsibility the moment they become adults. When his classmate asks Vivek what his dream is, he is flummoxed, unable to articulate an answer.

Yet All India Rank is a welcome interlude from New India, a much-needed reprieve from the “sound and fury signifying nothing”, to quote Macbeth. There are no sensory excesses in this film. The colours are muted, the moods are muted, the characters are, without exception, gentle. Ragging in this world is playfully taking away a jar of homemade sweets—and then returning it. Betrayal, grief, love—all happen quietly and against the mostly low volume backdrop of cult 1990s jingles, songs and other assorted memorabilia. You will likely spot the Gabriella Sabatini poster and the Hero Ranger cycle against the chimneys of the city’s thermal power plant but you have to watch and listen carefully to get all the references. I’m waiting for a fan site.

Living now in a country that has abandoned all control, it’s a relief to hear Vivek, the protagonist of the film, say that his goal is to lead a controlled life. Like that 2012 bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, Grover’s film is an ode to those who prefer to reflect, think.

All India Rank is a portrait of a forgotten time. The film reminds us that 1997 was the year Princess Diana died, but it was also the year Mother Teresa died. It was the year Sonia Gandhi joined politics and the year India had two Prime Ministers—HD Deve Gowda and Inder Gujral. The next year Gujral ceded his position to Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party. It was an era in which Indians had the liberty to change their minds frequently.

In the film we see the shoots of what will soon grow into a mighty nation of hurt sentiments, but Grover’s story stays focused on ordinary lives that have not yet been impacted by the advent of the cellphone or Facebook. It’s a world where parents can find redemption too.

Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.