12th failure: big expectations, big wins
Just halfway through '12th Fail', directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, civil service aspirant Manoj Sharma (Vikrant Massey) is visited by his father (Harish Khanna) at the dilapidated flour mill in New Delhi where he lives and works. Manoj is at the low point of his journey from an obscure village in Chambal, Madhya Pradesh, to success in the highly competitive civil service entrance exams. He has been unsuccessful in his previous three attempts and is preparing for the fourth and final one for which he is eligible. However, the preparations are not going smoothly.
After losing a relatively more comfortable job as a cleaner in a library, he now works in a flour mill. With little access to books, notes or training classes at Mukherjee Nagar in New Delhi, essential for passing the exam, he faces more challenges. During a recent visit to his village, he discovers that his family is in dire financial circumstances. As a result, he works longer hours at the factory to send money home. His budding relationship with fellow aspirant Shraddha Joshi (Medha Shankar) is also on the rocks.
Manoj's father has had his share of struggles. Earlier in the film, he was fired from his government job on false allegations of corruption. He left his family in the village and fought the government in court for rehabilitation. But seeing his son in such distress breaks his resolve to continue the fight.
“People like us can never win,” he says. “But we won't accept defeat either, right?” Manoj replies, smiling happily, his face covered in soot and flour dust. He reminds his father of a poem the latter taught his children: “I write a new rhyme on the pages of time / I sing a new song.”
This scene, like described by critic Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, is one of the film's several lump-in-the-throat moments. It draws its emotional power from Shantanu Moitra's writing, acting and music consisting of a sitar, a sarod and a flute, which in some ways echoes the better-known score for Pandit Ravi Shankar's Apu trilogy.
Watching the film this week, I wondered if this connection was just in my head, if I was being sentimental. However, director Chopra recently told film critic Baradwaj Rangan how he had acquired the rights to the music of “Pather Panchali,” the first film of Ray's trilogy, released to universal acclaim in 1955, but could not muster the courage to use it. Moitra's sparse score, composed during an intensive two-month session, provides the scene's emotional charge.
The meeting between Manoj and his father reminded me strongly – not of “Pather Panchali” – but of a scene from “Apur Sansar”, the third and final film of Ray's trilogy. In this scene, quite early in the film, the main character Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee) and his friend Pulu (Swapan Mukherjee) are out at night to watch a play and have dinner. Apu works as a teacher and earns Rs 15 per month. Their conversation reveals that he could have gotten a job with a railroad company, but did not accept it because the position was a strikebreaker. Now he lives in a dilapidated rented room and eats rice, dal and boiled potatoes every day. A treat with pork chops from his friends prompts him to loudly recite poetry in the street.
Apu begins to tell Pulu the story of a novel he is writing. It is about a boy from a village who migrates to the city, gives up his family profession as a priest and embarks on an ambitious and rationalistic journey. “Maybe there is greatness in him,” says Apu. “He can't do anything yet. But that's not a tragedy. He remains poor. But he never turns away from life. He wants to live.”
Apu's friend rejects the project, calling it an autobiography rather than a novel. In some ways he is right. Despite all the challenges Apu has faced since childhood – abject poverty, the death of his parents and sister, and the loss of his wife during childbirth – he refuses to give up. Apu is his nickname; after all, his real name is Aparajito, which means the unconquered.
Manoj's story in '12th Fail' is inspired by the real-life 'rags to riches' story of Manoj Kumar Sharma, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, told in the non-fiction book of the same name by Indore-based writer Anurag Pathak . Sharma and his wife, Shraddha Joshi, an Indian Revenue Service officer, also have cameos in the movie.
Film critic Devansh Sharma writes in the Hindustan Times that Manoj's biggest challenge is not his poverty or lack of opportunities, but self-love and appreciation. In the climax of the film's interview, he gets a huge boost in confidence when a letter from Shraddha helps him realize that she will continue to love him regardless of whether he clears the civil service exam or not.
Dilip Mandal, on the other hand argues in an article for the Print that many of the benefits Sharma enjoys despite being so desperately poor – free food, access to a coaching centre, the love of an “upper caste” girl – are the result of his caste privilege. Comparing it to white privilege, Mandal writes: “(Manoj) Sharma's case is similar. He may not even know why all the doors open for him so easily. It is easy for him and others to think that he was smart and hard working. But we all know that's not the whole story.”
However, both Sharma and Mandal provide only a partial reading of the film, ignoring important aspects of the text. While Shraddha's love is a major motivation for Manoj, his journey isn't just from lack of validation to miraculous success. On the contrary, Manoj is constantly helped – sometimes absolutely selflessly – by several people, such as DSP Dushyant Singh (Priyanshu Chatterjee), his friend Pritam Pandey (Anant V. Joshi) and Gauri (Anshumaan Pushkar).
'12th Fail' is not an everyday self-help book that focuses on the individual and not on the social circumstances in which they find themselves. One could even argue that without significant help from everyone around him, Manoj would never have achieved his goal.
Similarly, the film does not ignore caste but directly addresses the character of Gauri, another IPS aspirant. As Gauri explains in his very first scene, he comes from a 'backward caste'. This allows him to make two additional attempts at the exam. But when he fails to clear it, he starts a tea stall where he helps underprivileged aspirants like Manoj.
The film remains aware of the fact that Manoj's story is not the norm, but the exception. For every Manoj there are a million Gauris. Their lives are not necessarily a failure.
Uttaran Das Gupta is a writer and journalist from New Delhi. He teaches journalism at OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat
First print: January 6, 2024 | 11:41 am IST