‘Chalk N Duster’ will school you

Sharpen your pencil and take down notes because Chalk N Duster will have you reaching out to that favourite teacher in your life, says the film’s star, Shabana Azmi.

“This film will stir in you a warm feeling about that teacher who played a very big role into shaping you and making you the person that you are today. You may have been too young to appreciate them, but this film will change that,” said Azmi over the phone in an interview about her film, directed by Jayant Gilatar, which opens in the UAE today.

Azmi plays an inspiring and empathetic Maharashtrian teacher, Vidya Sawant, who gets sacked on unfair grounds when a new principal joins her Mumbai-based school. Another teacher, played by actress Juhi Chawla, is also terminated unfairly.

“These teachers want their dignity and status back and it is their fight against an ambitious principal who wants to commercialise the school,” said Azmi.

There’s no arguing that this is a dry subject and doesn’t have blockbuster written all over it. The actor and the director of this woman-dominated drama aren’t shy about admitting that they didn’t expect their film to release outside India.

“I am surprised that it is releasing in the UAE. It is a good sign. These are interesting times in Hindi cinema. All kinds of films are being made. Right from the blockbuster such as Bajirao Mastani, you have a film like Qissa. Chalk N Duster fits into the category of Dum Laga Ke Haisha. This too has a positive vibe with an intrinsically humane story at its core,” said Azmi, alluding to the underdog comedy about an overweight woman and her struggles to win over her fat-shaming husband.

The director of Chalk N Duster, who made his film on a modest budget of Rs140 million (Dh7.6 million), also realises that he has it tough. There’s no crude humour, swearing or item songs (raunchy song and dance interludes that have no relation to the film) in his “clean, family entertainer” to lure the conventional Bollywood-mad movie crowd.

“There are two types of films: commercial films with their huge star cast, item songs and sex; and secondly, the content-driven films such as Talvar and Tanu Weds Manu.

“Tastes of people nowadays have changed. They want grandeur, but they want strong content too,” said Gilatar.

The box-office collections on its opening day may not be strong, but he’s confident that it will pick up after the third day because of word-of-mouth publicity.

For National-award winning actress Azmi, who has acted in over 120 Hindi films, it was the prospect a strong role that made her accept Chalk N Duster (the director told tabloid! that he waited for six months to get a go-ahead from her).

“Just like doctors who take the Hippocratic oath, teachers too, have a great responsibility. They are the biggest influences on you. So if they can put their energy into doing away with rote learning and instead inculcate in you a spirit of enquiry, it means that they need to put in so much effort. I do know that had it not been for some important teachers in my life, I would not be the person that I am despite having a wonderful background as far as my parents are concerned.

“Teachers are the ones who influence your mind in a very tactile way,” said Azmi, who’s also an activist and takes pride in educating slum children in Mumbai. She also runs a charity school in a village in Mijwan, where she teaches girls embroidery and other skills.

“As somebody who has been involved in teaching, I think teachers in our country do not get their due. Apart from it being a noble profession, it is the most important requirement in a child. The kind of education that you go through largely depends on the teacher through which it is filtered. This film touches upon that too,” said Azmi.