In continuation to my last weekend blog on 10 most inspiring Hindi films of the recent times. Last week I had mentioned about 5 such films, and in today’s blog I am writing about the balance five films.
- I am Kalam – It is a about a small boy named Chotu, who is inspired by former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam. He even changes his name to Kalam. It was a wonderful film and it has to be seen to feel the essence of the film. The child actor Harsh Mayar who acted in a lead role, won the national award for the best child artist. The film was directed by Nila Madhab Panda.
7 Manjhi, The Mountain man- It is a biopic film made on life and times of Dashrath Manjhi, who is popularly known as The mountain man. The film was directed by Ketan Mehta. The story is set in the year 1960, Manjhi (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui) lives in small village with his wife Phaguniya Devi (played by Radhika Apte). There is a rocky mountain near the village and the people either had to climb across or travel round to gain the access to medical care at the nearest town. One day Manjhi’s pregnant wife fell while trying to cross the mountain and eventually dies giving birth to a girl. This shatters Manjhi but he decides to carve the road through mountain, with only chisel and hammer he started hammering the mountain to build road. The other villagers started calling him lunatic. It took him 22 years to build that road. Manjhi died in 2007.
8 Swades- Produced and Directed by Aushotosh Gowariker. It is considered as one of the best film ever produced on rural upliftment. Shah Rukh Khan, who is working as scientist with NASA in USA, ome on a visit to India to meet his foster grand mother who took care of him in his younger days. While travelling by road to the village where the lady stays now, he sees the living conditions in which the poor people lives in villages with hardship. In the village where he goes to meet the lady, there is acute shortage of water and whole village is suffering because of it. Now how Shah Rukh brings the water to the village with his engineering knowledge, and it the end decides to stay back in India only to work for the upliftment of other villages. The film is credited with life best performance of Shah Rukh Khan.
9 Chak De India- Directed by Shamit Amin. The film is about the hockey player Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), who is humiliated by public after he fails to score a goal through a Penalty stroke in a match against Pakistan, which resulted in India losing the match. The public and media charge him that as he is Muslim he purposely fail to score to favour Pakistan. Even Hockey federation sacks him from the team. After few years he comes back to coach Indian women hockey team for coming World Cup , which is to be played in Australia , till that time 6 times World Champion. The film is about he wins the confidence of all the women players of the team after the shaky beginning. Then he transforms all the players and make them to play as a team , which enables the team to lift the World Cup. Wonderful performance by Shah Rukh Khan.
The last one on the list is
10 Bhag Milkha Bhag- Directed by Rakyesh Mehra. This film is biopic on life and times of legendary athlete Milkha Singh. Most of the younger people of the country had forgotten about Milkha Singh, and this film showed them about the hardship Milkha Singh goes through in younger days. Milkha Singh came to India after his family was killed in Pakistan during partition time in 1947. The film shows how he survives in refugee camp in Delhi, and just to earn his livelihood he joins army as soldier, and there how he got picked up as runner, and what he achieves as runner is beautifully shown in the film. He even had the guts to say no to even Prime Minister, when PM request him to go on goodwill games to Pakistan. After lots of pressure and coaxing by friends he goes there, and beats Pakistan’s best runner convincingly who was hailed as great completion to Milkha Singh. After his victory Pakistani President name him as Flying Sikh, and this title became his second name. Certainly this is one of the best biopic ever made in India, and Farhan Akhtar lived in the role of Milkha Singh.
Friends, I hope you must have liked this blog about most inspirational Hindi films in recent times.
Awaiting your views/feed backs/comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
19th June 2020.
R. N. Mungale.
I liked this blog very much.