"Sochta hoon retirement ke baad Umrika chaley jau. Wahan mere jaise log izzat sey jee sakte hain..."
Toward the end of Aligarh, we hear professor Siras, the 64 year old Marathi professor from Aligarh Muslim University utter these heart-breaking lines. Lines that are bound to haunt you long after the credit roll stops scrolling. What does he mean by 'mere jaise loag'? On the surface, it might be seen as the melancholic ache of a lonely, aged homosexual man who has faced the prejudice of the conservative Indian society. But on giving it a second thought, one cannot help but think of 'mere jaise loag' as ourselves - the common man.
A hardworking professor who is in awe of his University campus, someone who does groceries on a Monday, enjoys his single malt whiskey while Lata Mangeshkar's "Aapki Nazron Ne Samjha Pyar Ke Kaabil Mujhe" plays in the background - he could be anyone we see in our day to day lives, be it your fourth-floor neighbour or your friend's distant relative. This character is one of us. Yet, the moment one finds out that he was being intimate with another man, a Muslim rickshaw-puller, in the privacy of his bedroom, equations change. A sting operation exposes the alternate sexuality of Prof. Siras due to which all hell break loose at the University and he gets suspended from his job. The society must quarantine him for his so-called immoral activity.
The story is set at a time when the Delhi High Court had decriminalized homosexuality. This gave Prof. Siras the chance to reluctantly fight against the University officials with the help of a minuscule number of friends and supporters, in order to get back his job and his house from which he had been wrongfully evicted under baseless charges. Amidst the courtroom chaos, we see Prof. Siras dozing off, bored because of technical discussions about the various sections of the law. Sometimes he is silently translating his own creation, a book of Marathi poems titled 'Paaya Khali Hirwal' (Grass Under My Feet) into English, oblivious to the accusations hurled at him.
At one point, Prof. Siras (Manoj Bajpayee) tells reporter Deepu Sebastian (Rajkummar Rao), poetry lies not in the words but in the pauses between them. Aligarh is sheer poetry on screen. Cinematographer Satya Nagpal manages to capture the lonely, boring life of an old man with supreme placidity. The film moves at a pace which will engulf you into the monotonous world of Prof. Siras - a world that might be mundane yet lyrical. The scenes are seamlessly stitched together by editor Apurva Asrani. He is also the co-writer of the film and his cleverly penned dialogues (and sometimes the lack of it) make things sound more authentic. We even see him in a cameo. The performances are bang on - Manoj Bajpayee never hits a false note and Rajkummar Rao quietly supports him throughout the film. The bond between these two characters is so real that you feel their agony. Supporting characters like Dilnaz Irani and Ashish Vidyarthi are meteors on screen, who manage to leave a lasting impression.
Through Aligarh, director Hansal Mehta manages to subtly ask a considerable amount of questions which are significant in today's times. It raises questions on caste, creed, identity, breach of privacy and the status of a single man in contemporary India. It asks us what it means to be different from the crowd. However the towering question that overpowers all the other questions is perhaps this - what makes a person simply want to run away from this precious, diverse land to a foreign country, just so he can live a dignified life?
By the end of the film, I wanted to howl, but somehow couldn't. Even though the fate of Prof. Siras was tragic, I am still hopeful. This cannot be the fate of the thousands of people in India and across the world who are swimming against the tide and grappling with their individual identities - be it professional or personal. Things must and will hopefully change in the coming years and this film proves to be a silent catalyst in that process. It totally deserves to be seen. Right now!
