Parallel Between Mohan and Feyzee

After procrastinating for over a month (lockdown does this to you), I watched Dulquer Salmaan, Nithya Menen and Late Thilakan starrer Ustad Hotel (2012) yesterday. The beauty of the film lies in the way it has palpably portrayed the human emotions. The film time and again talks about how life is a journey and we are all but travellers. And the traveller around whom the film revolves is a young Feyzee who wants to be a cook, adding to the resentment to his businessman father who wants Feyzee to be money minded like him. But Feyzee is unperturbed and leaves his father’s house, and starts staying with his grandfather. His grandfather, a reputable old man runs an extremely loved dhaba-like-hotel, and is known for his altruistic and charitable nature. As Feyzee starts to spend time with his father, and learns how to work in his hotel, Feyzee absorbs that his grandfather is not an ordinary old man but a man of wisdom. Wisdom that is not learnt in universities and colleges or by reading books. Wisdom that is imbibed by journeys, spiritually and physically. Wisdom that is attained when you when you start practicing selflessness.

The film reminded me of Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades (2004) starring Shah Rukh Khan and Gayatri Joshi. Swades was primarily a film about a journey that Mohan Bhargawa ( Played excellently by Shah Rukh Khan) undergoes when he comes to India in search of his guardian, his Kaveri amma. In his quest to take his Kaveri amma back to the USA with him, Mohan goes through a transformational journey, both physically and spiritually. 

In Ustad Hotel, when Feyzee starts working with his grandfather, despite him being a professional chef, his grandfather does not let him enter the kitchen unless Feyzee learns how to clean the tables, make authentic chapatis, and carry the goods like other members of the hotel. The first time when Karim asks Feyzee to pick up a rice sack, Feyzee gets displeased. How can a Gulf returned, educated in Europe do such menial jobs! But, Karim knew what he was doing. On the other hand, when Mohan comes to Charanpur for Kaveri Amma, he brings with him the comfortable life of America. A van that can provide him with the luxuries he cannot be without, his own bed, his own water bottle, et al. Though both the characters experience and endure the journey of self exploration, it is one incident in both films that works as a boiling point.

In Ustad Hotel, grandfather Karim plays a role of a catalyst in transforming Feyzee when he sends him to Madurai to complete a task of his. On the other hand, in Swades, Kaveri Amma does the same when she asks Mohan to go to Kodi for a task of collecting money. These journeys with their journeys change something in them forever. Both the ‘Non Residential Indian’ characters learn something about their country at a grassroot level. They learn how people here are managing to merely survive having nothing to eat, having no money, nothing at all. Their foreign bred luxuries seem futile to them. The comfort, money, what is the use? To answer this question, they both strive to do something for the country, its people, and also for them. Mohan produces electricity for the Charanpur Village and goes to America, only to come back to India forever. And, Feyzee abandons his dream of being a chef in Paris and becomes a full time chef in Ustad Hotel, feeding his people with the compulsory ingredient called, love.  

Both the films talk sedulously about hope, self exploration, and listening to your heart. Yes, money is extremely important. But what will money do if your heart will keep longing for your land, for your people, and for things you actually want to do in life?

Writer’s recommendation: Lockdown is difficult, what is happening around the world is painful, and the days are gloomy with the future that is uncertain. But when this gloominess engulfs you, give these movies a go. You might feel better. I did.