Having the experience of being a teacher in both the era of with and without the Internet and ‘Google Baba’, I have personally witnessed the change in attitude of students from completely trusting their teachers to abruptly questioning and looking at them doubtfully relying more on the web search engines & wikipedias. Moreover, post I left the teaching stream, the scenario got even more complex and confused when the young students started learning their initial lessons in almost everything in life from random Youtube videos instead of learned teachers, scholars and elders.
Today, the times have completely changed largely led by confusions more than solutions and we urgently need some massive educative reforms in both the content as well as in the teaching methods according to the changing times. Alternative techniques of dealing with the already informative students is the need of the hour, but somehow we are still continuing with the conventional ways of teaching in our schools as well as colleges since the last century.
ROUGH BOOK makes a bold and noble attempt presenting the issue, as seen and experienced by a teacher, who has to deal with a corrupt Income tax officer as her husband at home and a weak, below average group of students assigned to her in the job. The film is all about how she tries to fight for her students as the school’s rebellion teacher, who doesn’t get the required support from her colleagues and the principal.
It begins in a familiar way, as seen in many other films made in the past mainly focusing on the clashes between the teacher and the students taking a dig at the educational system. But thankfully doesn’t stay on that and tries to rise much above the seen before, focusing more on the novel problems created by the web and changing attitudes of the young students. To be fair, even 3 IDIOTS didn’t talk about this bringing in the Internet and Google because the services had still not become an issue in the years Hirani conceived and shot his film.
Reportedly based on real life incidents, ROUGH BOOK yet again questions the age old educational system followed in our country run by entirely commercial schools and colleges, but tries to do it differently presenting a fresh and relevant perspective. However it does that too simply and subtly without many powerful moments in the film that ideally should have been there shaking the viewers. The film is relatable and has many significant points mentioned in its dialogues coming at regular intervals too, but it still doesn’t move you in any influential manner.
As a director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan takes up an important subject and tries his best to wrap up a lot in just 90 minutes of duration, which were surely not enough for a subject like that made for the Indian audience in particular. But then, even the attempt deserves a loud appreciation in the present scenario when there are not many with such vision of adapting socially relevant subjects that can contribute and pay back to the society and people.
Confidently led by Tannishtha Chatterjee performing a complex kind of role, the film sadly suffers due to a not so exciting writing and less impactful cast except Ram Kapoor leaving his mark in one specific sequence. In fact ROUGH BOOK mainly gets its pull from the subject and Tannishtha alone with the supporting cast hardly forming any connect with the audience.
Technically satisfying venture, it is a thought provoking eye-opener film but at the same time a very mild one, softly pointing towards the right things. May be I was personally expecting it to be a lot more impressive as well as explosive in terms of content, connect and execution. Nevertheless, it still deserves to be seen along with the kids in the family, as we are all part of this questionable education system as teachers, students, parents, board of directors, educationists and political leaders, certainly capable of bringing the much desired change.
Rating : 3 / 5 (including additional points for its subject and for being a courageous attempt by its makers.)
(Note : The film could be seen at Amazon Prime for a subscription at the time of writing this article)
