Written by nationalist Sane Guruji and made into a poignant and educational film 70 years back, Shyamchi Aai is still relevant in today’s world where material greed and consumerism have almost replaced emotions like love and generosity, where a son even turns on his mother for money. Shoma A. Chatterji discusses the film that steered a new movement in cinema as education, infotainment.
Shyamchi Aai (1953), a Marathi feature film directed by Acharya P. K. Atre, is the first Indian film to have been honoured with the President’s Gold Medal in 1954. This was the precursor to the National Film Awards. Now more than seven decades later, the film is a rage among school children in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and even Punjab. Shyamchi Aai is based on the autobiographical writings of Pandurang Sadashiv Sane, better known as Sane Guruji (1899- 1950). He wrote the book in five days flat when he was in jail for participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement in colonial times.
A nationalist influenced by Vinoba Bhave and Gandhiji, Sane Guruji was imprisoned repeatedly for his work among the peasantry and participation in the Quit India movement. Shyamchi Aai has 45 episodes in which Shyam, a youth living in poverty in Konkan, recalls the teachings of his mother, a devoutly religious person with an earthy and practical philosophy. He wrote this book in five days while he was detained in jail for participation in the ’Civil Disobedience movement’. He was a sensitive man and a prolific writer. Several generations of Maharashtrians have grown up with this book and the landmark film is based on the book.
Subhash Chheda, of Rudraa Home Video, bought the rights to the film in 2003. He made the DVD and VCD versions of the film and made these available at a modest price. At that time, he hardly imagined the impact this film would have on three to four generations of people in Maharashtra. People came forward to volunteer for the screening in schools, small towns and villages. The film has steered a new movement in cinema as education, infotainment.
In the first few years, it had been already screened across 15000 schools with 50,000 screenings projected through DVD on a large screen with the help of volunteers who cut across age, occupation, education, sex and social status, before its leader, Prakash Mohadikar passed away.
Says noted film archivist Subhash Chheda, “My aim through cinema is not just to entertain, but also to educate. This is a unique distribution and exhibition strategy we devised by taking the film from one school to the next to spread the story of Sane Guruji through the film. I had founded Rudraa to promote meaningful, educative cinema across the world. We reached out to school children across Maharashtra and nearby states. I made the DVD and VCD copies of the film available at a very low price of Rs.5.00 in some schools and Rs.10.00 in other schools.” All this happened in 2003 and the movement of promoting and screening the film in schools began to spread like wildfire soon. It goes on till this day, by volunteers steeped in the movement.
“These screenings attracted commercial sponsors like snack-selling merchants who came forth to distribute free packets of beaten rice snacks among the children, or packets of milk, leading to a strange kind of marketing never seen across the world before,” informs Chheda.
“When we began to approach schools in districts and talukas to screen the film, we did not imagine the snowballing effect it would have,” says Chheda. It is a story that everyone – adult or child, man or woman, educated or illiterate – can relate to. Not a single soul has remained untouched by this story of how the love and care of a mother can shape a child’s mindset for the better and forever. I get hundreds of requests around Mother’s Day every year to screen the film. I never say no to a single request. I may hold the right to the film. But no can hold the right to mother’s love the film shows and the book talks about,” he says philosophically.
“It is a deeply moving inspirational and educational film. It has relevance in today’s world where material greed and consumerism have almost replaced emotions like love and generosity, where a son even turns on his mother for money. It should be compulsory viewing to divert children exposed to the materialism of modern society towards the real values of life, love and respect for parents, honesty, integrity and hard work,” said the senior most volunteer of the Shyamchi Aai movement, Prakashbhai Mohadikar who passed away some time ago well into his nineties.
Mohadikar of Sane Guruji Kathamala sold more than five lakh copies of the Marathi language book Shyamchi Aai. He had founded more than 400 Kathamala branches in Maharashtra. After his demise, the movement was taken forward by Datta Puranik who sold more than one lakh copies of the same book visiting people from door to door while schools had screenings of the film for the students. Datta Puranik from Pune, a retired schoolteacher, who joined Mohadikar, would forego meals unless he had sold at least one subsidised copy of the book or the film. Puranik sold more than 40, 000 copies of book and more than 10,000 copies of films in VCD and DVD formats over the last years.
Shyamchi Aai is the story of the beautiful and duty bound Yashodabai, a strong and dignified woman, and her relationship with the second of her three sons, Shyam. Sane Guruji’s nickname was Shyam. He was born into a Brahmin family in rural Maharashtra. The film is set against the backdrop of the freedom struggle when Bal Gangadhar Tilak was imprisoned for six years for his part in the Civil Disobedience Movement. The film is narrated in flashback, when Shyam is a grown man to a group of eager listeners. Shyam belongs to an affluent family of landowners. But his father is a simple man and finds himself trapped in poverty due to debts he has incurred and betrayal by his younger brothers. Yashodabai persuades her husband to build a small house with a thatched roof because she does not want to stay with her family in her father’s house. When they are evicted from this home too, by her husband’s debtors, she falls ill and dies before Shyam reaches to see her from his boarding school.
Shyamchi Aai has the basic ingredients of a mainstream film, though. It has lots of songs set to music by Vasant Desai. The lyrics are beautiful, some with anecdotes and stories from the epics and legendary tales. The magical hold of songs on children is seen in every screening when they sing along with Shyam as he mimics his teacher, in Chhadi Laage Cham Cham. Asha Bhosale’s soulful rendering of Barjari Ga Pitambari with the lyrics expounding unconditional love still has the power to hold listeners spellbound.
Sane Guruji’s childhood and his interactions with his mother Yashodabai are filled with myriad images of values imparted through discipline, reward and punishment. Shyam who is afraid of water, is thrust into the pond along with his brothers to make him learn to swim much against his will. This scene carries resonances of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar swimming across the flooded waters of Damodar River to reach his mother on the other side. Later, Shyam tells his mother how swimming helped him come home on a stormy night across flooded waters.
Once, Shyam steals one rupee from his uncle’s shirt pocket. When his mother is humiliated by the uncle and his wife, Shyam confesses that he has indeed stolen the money. His mother beats him up, and then forces him to promise that he will never do it again. Later, when they have become very poor, his friends taunt him about the straw-thatched hut they live in. He says, “We may be poor but we are rich in heart.” His mother asks him who taught him such beautiful thoughts. “It was you mother,” says Shyam and hides his face in his mother’s sari.
Highlighting a mother’s unconditional love for her child, the film brings to life the saying ‘ Swami teenhi jagancha pan Aayee vina bhikari’. Roughly translated, it means, “You may be the greatest person in this universe, but you are only a beggar without a mother.”
“In a world fractured by communal conflicts and ethnic disharmonies, where films like My Name is Khan and 3 Idiots can get their message across only through violence in its varied manifestations, Shyamchi Aai takes today’s children to a world where love sustains within poverty, humiliation, betrayal and oppression. It upholds motherhood through the character of Shyam’s mother after who the film is titled. It harps on the importance of honesty, integrity and unity, values decadent in the strife-stricken world we live in,” sums up Chheda.
Shoma A. Chatterji is a freelance journalist, film scholar and author. She has authored 17 published titles and won the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema, twice. She won the UNFPA-Laadli Media Award, 2010 for ‘commitment to addressing and analysing gender issues’ among many awards.