A lot of us meet life’s biggest questions on a daily basis, but decide to look away and pass them by because we like to feign urgency and lack of time. And then comes Rajat Kapoor’s Ankhon Dekhi and you’re left to marvel at the grand beauty of the small things in life. Taking his own sweet time to set it up, Rajat Kappor tells the story of Bauji (Sanjay Mishra), a working class man, living in a small rooftop apartment in old Delhi along with his blustering yet unconditionally loving wife (Seema Pahwa), a college going daughter (Maya Sarao), a drifter son (Chandrachoor Rai) and his younger brother Rishi (Rajat Kapoor) and family.
A hilarious meeting with his daughter’s pseudo-rogue boy friend (Namit Das) leads Bauji to the sudden realisation that nothing in the world can be believed, unless it’s been seen with one’s own eyes.
In his pursuit of this nugget of knowledge, the previously religious, hard working, practical man turns into an agnostic/border atheist, jobless, holy being giving away random lines of supposed truth, which to his bewilderment gathers a cult following all the way - a bunch of motley characters who follow him around, hoping to learn from the already confused poor man. “Apni sach dhoondh,” Bauji repeats in vain.
Going on parallely is Bauji’s tryst with his much beloved younger brother, who wants to split from the joint family setting and get his own flat, along with his wife and son.
Although all too predictable, this relationship was portrayed with such a light touch, that even the melodrama towards the end seems poignant.
The biggest win for the movie is undoubtedly its brilliant cast. Rajat Kappor wings the casting coup of the year, by putting together a family that’s as believable and dysfunctional as any one of our families. The unprofessed love between the household members simmers continuously under the skin of these actors, even when they’re at locked horns, hurling accusations at each other and it’s difficult to not be drawn in to the four walls of their lives. Sanjay Mishra’s performance was par excellence, while Seema Pahwa donned the matriarchal badi bahu mantle with boisterous aplomb.
Although a little too meandering in its second half, Ankhon Dekhi is a whimsical film and the set pieces are carefully created with an excruciating eye for detail.
A particular scene where Rajat Kapoor manages to off-set Bauji’s vow of silence to a young boy’s inability to stop talking, is just the kind of stroke of brilliance that elevates the movie from an entertainer to an exercise in profound script-writing.
The movie runs in theatres till this Thursday and it would be a shame indeed if missed.