When I was a kid I remember reading a very small booklet on Vivekananda. I will never forget two things that I had read. I remember reading that Vivekananda used to read books at sensational speed with tremendous concentration and sort of have a photographic memory of all that he had read and that he traveled extensively across the length and breadth of India without possessing a penny. I always wanted to emulate both of them (Just kidding). Being a school going boy who was suggested to study well and coming from a pretty poor family having crazy dreams of the world of traveling, I used to fantasize on both the activities mentioned. Even to this day, I don’t understand much of his works and writings as they are very complicated. Reading a lot from "The complete works of Swami Vivekananda" can drive me crazy and make me fall off. However, Vivekananda will always be a mysterious personality for me to study and learn about. So when a biopic was made on the man, I went to watch it.
There were approximately less than 10 people watching this movie in the theater and I thought the authorities might just refund us the ticket price when to my surprise they anyhow ran the show. As the plot is not available in Wiki, I would like to delve into it this time. Young Naren is introduced to us as an extremely generous person, who is locked up in a room by his mother for his mischievous acts and he is now throwing away clothes to the poor and the needy through the window. He is a rebel and questions stuff. When he sees 3 hookahs in his fathers office kept for the members of three different religions, he questions the in-charge and learns that it is so as to uphold segregation in religions and not let the virtue of any cast or creed of any religion go away by treating them singularly, he smokes from all of them. He learns music as he grows up and is good at singing. He is a student of the Brahmo Samaj and a person who never believes anything without a valid proof. He is suggested by his friends to sing in front of Ramakrishna, which he obliges to. When Ramakrishna goes into a state of samadhi listening to Naren sing, he thinks that the state of samadhi is false, fake and a sheer meaninglessness. He is suggested by his friend to meet Ramakrishna and ask him about God. Ramakrishna states that he has seen God and that he can also ensure that he shows God to Naren.
Naren’s father who is an attorney is sickening and on the verge of death. After his fathers demise, he tries to find a job but fails repeatedly. He comes to Ramakrishna and requests him if Kali can help him get a job for which Ramakirshna sends him to pray for the same. When Naren stands in front of the Goddesses to pray for a job, all he is uttering is to bless him with knowledge and wisdom. He is told by his teacher that he need not have to worry about the food and clothing and the struggles of an ordinary life as he was born for something else and for the extraordinary. Ramakrishna dies of throat cancer after passing on all of the knowledge and power to his devout student. Naren now travels the length and breadth of India barefooted meeting kings and the people around the places of his visit. One of the striking conversations he has is when Maharaja of Khetri mocks idol worshipers. Swami asks the King’s minister to spit on a plaque that has the kings portrait thereby infuriating the king and Swami explains that if a portrait deserves respect in spite of not being the actual person, idols too represent a way/portrait as a pathway to divinity. There is a beautiful scene where Naren rejects to bless a dancer in the court of the king of khetri as she is a dancer and later seeks her forgiveness for his arrogance.
Vivekananda travels southwards finally reaching Kanyakumari and meditates on one of the rocks slightly away to seashore on the greatness of our nation - INDIA. He then travels to America to speak in the Parliament of the World’s Religions at Chicago in 1893. While traveling, there is a scene where Jamsetji Tata meets Vivekananda and is advised by him to open industries in India. After his roaring success at the forum, there is an interesting scene that shows John Rockefeller meeting Vivekananda and being inspired by him to get involved in charity and thereby live a vast, helpful, meaningful life. Viveknanda then moves to England and spreads the greatness of Hinduism and finally comes back to India. He along with the other disciples of Ramakrisha embark on the Ramakrishna Mission. He invites Margaret Elizabeth, an Irish woman who would become Sister Nivedita, an opportunity to serve in India honoring her request earlier during their meet in England. Vivekananda understands that his time has come to leave his body and finally enters into a state of samadhi and the final credits roll.
The movie only chronicles the events in Vivekananda’s life just like a power point presentation on how a particular company achieved remarkable milestones over a long period of time with just the achievement and the time period related to it and nothing else describing the most essential "how". It fails to engross the audiences with the kind of storytelling required to capture their imagination about a legendary spiritual leader with interesting twists and happenings in the course of events through effective plot structure and screenplay. I have read a critical biography on Vivekananda by Amiya P. Sen that portrays the man as a very intense, influential, dynamic personality with his ideas manifesting ambiguities and shifting priorities which make him a thought-provoking leader. However, the movie fails to deliver an interesting tale on a so called great man. Deep Bhattacharya plays the character of Swami amazingly well. He seemed to me to be cut out to play Swami Vivekananda as he has such an uncanny resemblance to the man. I sort of liked performances of all the characters except for Gargi Roy Choudhury playing Sarada Devi which seemed absolutely unconvincing. I will end the review with a dialogue that Swami states after coming back from the west talking on the issues prevailing in our country. He states "We all want to be leaders and there is no one to actually serve"