But the chasm separating the two just keeps deepening and finally, there is no road back for either one of them. Kasturba acts as a bridge at times and a referee at others. His streak of self-destruction proves to be his nemesis and he dies unknown at a hospital. He oscillates between bouts of alcoholism, debauchery, even converts to Islam for a while. He looses his wife Gulab (Bhoomika Chawla) and after that his life take a downward plunge. At every subsequent meeting, he tells his son to come back and join him in the freedom struggle.īut Harilal?s story is like a downward graph. There were opportunities but he preferred to give them away to others as he had other plans for Harilal. So despite Harilal wanting to study and become a barrister, Gandhi does not allow him to go to London and study at the Bar. The problem was that Gandhi?s first experiments began with his family ? his wife Kasturba (Shefali Shah) and his sons. It is not that he loves him less but just that he had had very high expectations of his first born. Underlying beneath this is sense of disappointment that the Mahatma goes through every time Harilal stumbles. So if Harilal could not keep up and lagged behind, Bapu did not always wait for him to catch up.
The timing was such that Gandhi had to forgo his duties towards his sons in the larger interests of the nation. Gandhi (Darshan Jariwala) was not just the father of Harilal but also the father of the nation. But tied as it is with the life of the nation and India?s fight for Independence, there is nothing purely personal in the relations between father and son. The film then moves in a flashback mode and the early years of Harilal?s life unfold. The film starts with Harilal (Akshaye Khanna), in a bedraggled shape, being brought into the hospital, where he is fighting for his life. The biographical details are a matter of general knowledge now. At others, he was busy trying to get away from the mammoth shadow of his father and make a life of his own. And who knew it better than his son Harilal, who tried unsuccessfully at various times to follow in the same path as his father. It is not easy to live and thrive under the shadow of a Titan and that?s what the Mahatma was. But unlike the play, the film leaves one with a strange kind of sadness. The father-son relationship is the focus of this film as well. One vividly recalls the play even today because of the fiery performances by Kay Kay Menon as Harilal Gandhi and Naseeruddin Shah as the Mahatma. It is based on a play that he had successfully staged some years ago called ?Mahatma versus Gandhi,? The play explored the turbulent relations between the father of the nation and his elder son.
So the climate couldn?t be better for Feroz Abbas Khan to make his film, ?Gandhi My Father?. The runaway success of ?Lage Raho Munnabhai? and Munna?s unique brand of Gandhigiri has overnight spurred a new-found awareness about the man and the legend. His grip on the Indian imagination remains intact even today. The Mahatma has inspired a lot of movements and revolutions in our country and abroad.