Hichki—No Bad Students

When the trailer of Siddharth P. Malhotra's Hichki was first released, besides the excitement of Rani Mukerji's comeback, the film's subject seemed to be an interesting one. I was a bit apprehensive that the portrayal of Tourette Syndrome in the film could easily become a caricature if not handled properly. After watching it, the film was much better than I expected. Hichki is adapted from Brad Cohen and Lisa Wysocky's book Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me the Teacher I Never Had. The film is the story of Naina Mathur (Rani Mukerji), who suffers from Tourette Syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary tics and vocalizations. Naina wants to be a teacher; however, no school will give her a chance because of her condition. After five years, she finally gets an opportunity to teach at St. Notker's School, named after the poet and musician Notker the Stammerer. Naina is assigned class 9F (F for failure, as a subtitle tells us), which comprises students from the lower economic classes who have now become rebellious because of the school's apathy towards them. Naina reforms these students and becomes the guiding light in their lives.

Hichki opens with Naina sitting on a bench in a school where she is waiting to be called for an interview. She is playing with her necklace made up of a five-paise coin as she is nervous. A young kid is playing with a paper airplane that lands near Naina. She picks it up and gives it back to him. In the first scene itself, the film portrayed the aspect of flying associated with Naina, which will go on to become one of the lessons that she imparts to her students after she becomes a teacher. There are quite a few scenes in the film depicting the act of flying. For instance, when her father comes to her house, there are a bunch of birds on the walls that can be seen.

At another stage, Naina calls her students and tells them they love to blame their circumstances in life. She asks them to write about the things they do not like about themselves on the last page of their notebook. Then, she tells them, "Jab tak yeh page kitaab me hai, tumhari zindagi ki kitaab, yahi pe khulegi aur yeh peh ruk jayegi. Lekin agar tum use apna bana loge, toh wohi sach tumhare pankh ban jayenge. " The story of your life is stuck on this page, full of your fears. But if you accept this fear, this truth will become the wind beneath your wings. Then, they all make planes of that page and fly them away. Naina has given them wings to fly. The song Khol De Par is again about flying. Phoonk marke, dhool jhaar le, chhor-chhaar ke saare chhappar, khol de par. Blow the dust away, leave all the thatched roofs, and open your wings. Later, we see that even the logo of the National Science Fair comprises paper airplanes. 

The film treats Naina's Tourette Syndrome as just one aspect of her personality. It is not about that syndrome. The film is about accepting the things that one is 'lacking.' In an early moment, Naina calls her Tourette's a separate entity in her. Later, she tells her students that even though they have Tourette's as they were blaming the school for not giving them prefectship. In the end, Naina says that the students became friends with their own Tourette's. For her, Tourette's is a different way of thinking and accepting that thinking. Instead of blaming life for their circumstances, they should work towards moving past them. It is a metaphor for learning to accept one's flaws.

Early in the film, a young Naina is in her class. She is having phonetic tics, which makes other students laugh. The class teacher admonishes Naina and asks her to stop making these noises. The same teacher is narrating Koshish Karne Walon Ki Haar Nahi Hoti, a poem written by Harivansh Rai Bachchan, to his students. The poem uses the example of an ant climbing up a wall to argue that, despite repeatedly falling, an ant never gives up. It says that the one who tries never fails. It is about perseverance and persistence, which also mirror the driving force in Naina's life in Hichki. She had applied to eighteen schools for a job and was rejected by all of them. St. Notker's school also rejected her application five times. When she was a kid, twelve schools rejected her, and it was St. Notker's that accepted her. Her thirteenth school, a number considered unlucky by many, became lucky for her. For five years, she worked as a part-time animator because she was looking for a job as a teacher. With her condition, many people, including her estranged father, advised her to look for a different kind of job. But Naina, like the ant in the poem, kept trying. Her dream of becoming a teacher came true only because she never gave up. At one point, she tells a group of teachers that if she can make them teach something new about her condition, then she can surely manage to teach the students. The passage that the class teacher is this one:-

Nanhi cheenti jab daana lekar chalti hai,

chadhti deewaron par, sau bar phisalti hai.

Man ka vishwas ragon mein saahas bharta hai,

chadhkar girna, girkar chadhna na akharta hai.

Akhir uski mehnat bekar nahin hoti,

koshish karne walon ki haar nahin hoti.

The tiny ant carries a small grain in its mouth,

climbs up on the wall, slips and falls a hundred times,

the determination in the mind fills your body with courage,

then climbing up and falling down does not hurt,

Ultimately, the ant’s efforts do not go to waste,

the one who tries never fails.

Naina's parents got separated because of her condition. Her father could not stand her tics. He could never accept her condition, even though Naina came to terms with it. In a way, he abandoned her. In a similar situation, the film shows that the students of 9F were never accepted by the school, its teachers, and its students. They were never made to belong at St. Notker's. Thus, Naina could easily relate to the students as well. In the end, the students of 9F participate in the science project making the Sea Link bridge as if the gulf separating the two sides had been bridged. 

The film's major argument is between two schools of thought about bad students. Naina believes that there are no bad students. There are only bad teachers. However, Naina's colleague Mr. Wadia believes that there are no bad students. There are only hopeless ones who cannot be taught anything and are beyond redemption. Unsurprisingly, Naina is proved right in this particular instance. The school topper from Mr. Wadia's class indulges in a case of false cheating because he thought his teacher will be happy. Mr. Wadia failed to inculcate the right values in his patron. Like Naina, he takes the blame for the actions of his students. Perhaps, there are no bad students.

In Hichki, Naina also uses unconventional methods to teach her patrons. A lecture on the laws of motion in physics turns into one on parabolas in mathematics, along with a practical demonstration using eggs. She believes in the real world, life does not test us by subjects. In this aspect, Naina is like Vinny Sir (Vinay Pathak), the English teacher from the show Hip Hip Hurray. He used to take classes outside the classroom and inspired his students to think differently. For a moment, I was reminded of Gulzar's Parichay, where Ravi (Jeetendra), a private tutor, reforms a grandfather's five unruly kids.

The actors playing the students in Class 9F are wonderful. Ashwin, the rapper, was the coolest. Aatish kept smelling hand sanitizers as he was addicted to their smell. The film does not mention this explicitly, but it is a growing problem where teens are increasingly getting addicted to the smell of substances, such as whiteners. The bunch of students in 9A is portrayed as elitists. I am not sure if it is appropriate, but it is worth observing that how something like the dressing sense, such as wearing a watch and a tucked-in shirt, can bring out the differences between the students in 9A and 9F. Also, as in Secret Superstar, there was a romance brewing between Insia and Chintan, who belonged to different religions; here in Hichki, a love story riddled with conflicts is in the offing as two students, belonging to different classes, start romancing each other. I also really liked the relationship between Naina and her brother Vinay (played by Hussain Dalal, who also wrote dialogues for Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and 2 States). He is very supportive of Naina.

Hichki is not without flaws. The issue with the film is that it does not delve deeper into the problems of the children. In addition, two particular segments did not work for me. First, when Naina tells her students that each of them is special in their own way. A student with the ability to do quick mental calculations might be one. However, someone knows that putting salt in bhindi after it is cooked is not really a clue that they should pursue chemistry. The film's thinking is naïve here. Second, the purpose of Naina's visit to the families of the students is not clear. She had always been sympathetic to her students. Rather she should have taken Mr. Wadia to visit these families. Naina is shown to be surprised when the families start jostling to collect water from a tanker. This segment seemed like an episode of poverty tourism. Thankfully, the film does not go further into this territory, unlike Hindi Medium, which was a bit silly in its premise and its treatment.

Hichki is a reversal of sorts for Rani Mukerji. In Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black, she played Michelle McNally, who is blind and mute. Her teacher Debraj Sahai (Amitabh Bachchan), becomes the guiding light in her life. In one particular scene, when she is being interviewed for admission to the university, she is asked, "What is knowledge?" She says, "Knowledge is everything. It is spirit, wisdom, courage, light, sound. Knowledge is my Bible, God. Knowledge is my teacher." She graduates after twelve years and wears the graduation robe only before her teacher. In Hichki, Rani Mukerji, as Naina, becomes that teacher. She is the pole star for her students and guides them in the right direction. Michelle and Naina overcome their disabilities with patience and persistence. They never give up. Ultimately, when the students came to visit Naina on the day of her retirement, I teared up. It was deeply poignant. I did not feel this while watching Secret Superstar or Nil Battey Sannata, but here, I was moved. I don't have many good memories of school, but I remembered one of my teachers who was not my favorite, but some of the things she told me I follow to this day.

The film would not have been what it is without Rani Mukerji's fine performance. It is not surprising as she has always been a brilliant actor. She is just so natural. In an interview before the release of the film, she said that the box office success of the film is important for her to do more films as it would indicate to her that the audience still wants to see her. She is right that it is one benchmark, but it is not the only benchmark. Given that the film has done well, she may continue to do more films. But even if the film did not, there is something to look up from this film. Kyun aur kyun nahi mein, ek soch bar ka faasla hai. Ek hichki bhar ka.

Trivia:

The students perform a play on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. 

Based on the book Front of the Class by Brad Cohen and Lisa Wysocky

Lectures in school

Sylvia Plath's quote on the poster

Other Reading:

1. Rahul Desai on the difference between a film about children for adults and a children's film—Link
2. Priyanka Krishna on the many things Hichki ignores—Link
3. Livemint on the problems with the Right to Education—Link
4. Livemint on the choice between government or private schools—Link

Dialogue of the Day:

"There are no bad students. Only bad teachers."

—Naina, Hichki

"School ke baahar jab zindagi imtihaan leti hai, toh subject wise nahi leti."

—Naina, Hichki