Gangoobai is a story that is more like candy floss. Why? It is sweeet, evokes innocence, and lets you feel the surreal. In this movie Gangoobai is a poor maid who dreams of owning a Gara (a Parsi garment with exquisite embroidery) sari. She is a widow whose husband wanted to gift her Gara but his early death leaves her desire unfulfilled. This childless widow has no family to turn to so the dream of owning the sari starts looking hazy. Soon the struggle to survive envelops her desire to own the coveted garment.
The woman takes household chores to earn a living and during one of her visit she happens to lay her eyes on the beautiful garment. Her desires are rekindled and she wants to own one now. But the garment is heavily priced and even with double efforts she has been unable to save enough to own one. So, she decides to work overtime to collect this pricey garment. Once she has saved enough she leaves Matheran for Mumbai. But here she meets people who have a story of their own. Will she finally be able to get what she wants? Will she succeed? This is what the movie is about.
Sarita Joshi’s performance as Gangoobai is like warm butter. It simply melts in your mouth and makes you take a shine to it. Joshi as the Bai is a class act and evokes every emotion and you feel for her quest. Her small dreams, her small needs make you root for her. Her encounter with Mumbaiwallahs is equally beautiful. Raj Zutshi is in top form as Rohan and Meeta Vashishth as Daksha is equally aptly cast. But the real revelation is Purab Kohli as Waman. His lover boy, do-gooder with a heart of gold act makes this a must watch for everyone. His chemistry with Gangoobai is beautiful. It is characters like these that make Gangoobai realize her dream. There is poetry of human emotions in this movie but poetry alone cannot make it a beautiful. The direction lacks pace and at times the movie looses focus. You may wonder why it happens so often in movies like this. The reason is that morality laden movies usually have nothing more than emotions to rely on hence; to keep audience engaged they keep weaving one emotion with other just to lengthen a short movie. The fallout is the loss of focus for the audience and hence, the movies suffer. Gangoobai could have been better and more appealing with a shorter time span; the length and over sloppy treatment mars this movie.
So should you go out and watch this saga? This is not a movie that would entertain you much, it is rather slow and probably it is not for everyone’s taste buds. But it is still worth a watch because it makes you look at your domestic helps with the respect they deserve. Go out and watch this sweet story and feel the emotions.