Shakuntala Devi… a story of mothers and daughters.

Last night I fell asleep only to be woken up around 4am by Marley who muttered some gibberish and promptly went back to sleep. If it were only that! He woke up 5 minutes later shook me and said some bizarre things. Now, I am not the best sleeper in town, I really need to push myself to sleep to get a good night’s sleep. Now that I had been woken up, going back to sleep wasn’t an easy task. I went on HotStar, started weighing the pros and cons of watching Dil Bechara. Then went on Prime and noticed Shkauntala Devi had released. I started watching it.

I hail from Karnataka and was raised in Mysore and as a Mysorean we were all very aware of who Shakuntala Devi was. It was at the University of Mysore that her talents were discovered. My mother, while we were growing up had introduced us to simple techniques to do basic math, these were inspired by SD. My brother and I were also introduced to Vedic mathematics at a young age. At home we have a whole set of math books by SD – Puzzles to puzzle you and the Joy of numbers. For the purposes of GK my mother had also told us about SD being called a ‘Human Computer’. My mom clearly admires SD. As we grew up, the internet and media were changing every year. We read a little more about the people our parents admired.

It has been evident by her very life and her travels that she lived a full life and she was ahead of her times. She clearly knew what she wanted in her life. I wonder what Sima aunty or for that matter the pseudo modern Geeta aunty would have to say about someone like SD.

The movie begins with SD solving the cube root of a number and just to ensure it isn’t a fluke her cousin asks her more and then presents her to the family as a Genius. On her father’s part, what we see isn’t elation and excitement or the intention to give her an opportunity to discover more of her gift but instead he treats her like a show monkey. She is taken from one place to another and her talent is lauded with people rarely taking time to sit her down and asking her how it is that she’s managing to make these calculations without so much as needing a pause. Clearly SD was an incredibly gifted human and she knew, and she tried to simplify math for us mere mortals. The movie portrays a fearless woman who moves to London to find her way in the world and gradually with her progressively solving complicated sums becomes world renowned.

Her marriage is portrayed as a happy one for the most part of the movie except when she finds her presence is lacking in her daughter’s life and decides to leave with her. It is here that we see fireworks between her and Paritosh Banerji. Some pertinent questions are asked – “Would he have expected her to move with him if he  was the one pursuing his talents around the globe? Why is it any different for him to tag with her?” Geeta aunty from Indian Matchmaking would not have been pleased with SD! As she leaves with her daughter, we see a definite affection between mother and daughter but we also see a girl who dearly misses her father. Her yearning for him grows as she writes to him regularly without ever hearing a response from him. Things with her mother sour up when she demands to be put in a school so she can stay in one place. Eventually Anupama is enrolled in a boarding school both by her own and her father’s insistence. As the movie progresses to Anu’s adulthood, we get a glimpse of a very stormy relationship between her and her mother. The storm is so big that, Anu decides to cut away from her mother.

As a daughter myself I could completely relate to the mother-daughter conflict, even though the reasons are different I was jolted down memory lane of my fights with my mom. We all go through this. It’s a rite of passage. SD’s fights with her daughter remind her of her own complicated relationship with her mother. There is a scene in the movie when SD comes to terms with her own emotions towards her mother and she cries out, “Amma” and dear good lord god I wasn’t prepared to feel my heart lurch in pain. The scene has been done beautifully. The video is in sepia mode and you see Vidya Balan clutching a sari and crying. What really got to me is the phrase, “Amma” which is very rarely heard in Bollywood cinema and VB sounded like she was crying for her own mother.

The movie progresses further and takes us through the conflicted annals of this mother- daughter relationship.

Should you watch it? YES. Shakuntala Devi’s story isn’t just about her beautiful mind, but also the full life that she lived in the process of discovering herself. She was clearly eons before her time because it would take more than science to explain her mental agility. The fact that she kept rediscovering herself as she kept growing isn’t just inspiring but something women all around the world should strive for. Her “Buddhi” and “Siddhi” culminating into her not just being a math genius but a person driven by her instinct and intuition says so much more about how the human faculty can prosper if we only let ourselves hear our inner voice, give in to our gut and just take the chance. Women will always have multiple roles to play – daughter, sister, wife, mother, a professional and many more. Then a role model will waltz into our lives with a seemingly good hold on all her roles but then you get a glimpse of her life beyond the curtains and you realise that there is so much to relate if we only look at her when she is being just herself without the garb of her roles.

Watch this movie with your family. It is certainly worth it. It is a take on her personal life and not purely about maths. You don’t need to do a revision before watching this movie just sit back and enjoy.

Again, this review seems like an opinion to me. I guess I’m going to call any future take on series, movies and books as “Peephole”. Whereby I don’t just concede to my limited knowledge on certain things but also make you, dear reader understand my craving for a story, understanding, dissecting and humanising and demonising it as my thoughts meander like restless wind. Ah, the Beatles were so poetic!