Spoiler Alert : This write up is more my musings than just a review, so those of you who haven't seen the movie and want to watch it might want to wait and first watch the movie before you read it. If you are not very keen about the movie, you may as well read it. You may want to see the movie next- you never know :-) 

The Disciple

-              By Chaitanya Tamhane

This movie depicts the journey of  a  young man ‘Sharad Nerulkar’ who has dreams about being an highly accomplished classical musician.

Sharad from a middle-class background is learning classical music in Mumbai from his Guru. Sharad’s Guru as well as  Sharad’s father revere “Maai” not only as a Guru but almost a God. Maai’s presence in the entire movie as only a voice brings in an interesting element of the intangible. Sharad gets his interest in music from his father who himself had dreams of being a musician but all he ended up doing was writing a book on music. Sharad’s father had a romantic notion of being an accomplished artist; an unrealistic notion of his own talent. But whether his own dreams were fulfilled or not – he does succeed in passing on those dreams to Sharad.

It is difficult to figure out whether Sharad’s musical aspirations are really his own or are they the unfulfilled dreams of his father that he carries on his shoulders, not at all aware of the burden that he has made his own.

Sharad’s character has the discipline required to learn the techniques but the inner seeking, the depth required to touch the soul of music – that is somewhere missing.

He attempts very genuinely to follow the ‘sadhana’ as prescribed by ‘Maai’ but can true sadhana be developed by following instructions? Sharad intellectually understands ‘sadhana’ and ‘sacrifice’ but somewhere in the drama of real life, falls short of reaching there. In his attempt to follow ‘Maai’s voice’ has Sharad drowned the voice of his own conscience?

There’s a remarkable scene in Sharad’s childhood when his father makes him sit for riyaaz on a Sunday morning while the mother urges the father to let the child go out and play. At the same time, the boy’s playmate comes in and asks the father permission to go out and play. The boy’s response in all this is very telling. The boy does not fidget or get up from his sit or even grumble as long as his father is teaching him music – in fact he is following his father’s instructions in a matter-of-fact way but the moment the father says he can go out to play – there isn’t a single moment’s hesitation in running out to play. What is it that Sharad had really wanted on a Sunday morning? Cut to many many years later – the night of the Guru’s death. Sharad comes home to watch a cabaret dance on TV. The intense ‘disinterest’ with which Sharad follows the rise of a young girl who becomes a singing session on one of the popular singing star show speaks volumes about the dilemma Sharad faces in following the strict sadhana to reach the pinnacle of music versus his unacknowledged need for success and popularity.

His musical benchmarks are set up by his father and his Guru through the voice of  Maai. They have personally experienced ‘Maai’s divinity in the field of music’ but Sharad is chasing a divinity which he has only experienced second hand. Whose dream is he chasing?

Maai’s line “ tantr shikavta yete pun bhaav shikavta yeth nahi” [techniques can be taught but devotion cannot be taught] says it all.

Unfortunately Sharad till the end does not realise the fact that he is carrying the ghost of his father’s dreams and ends up walking exactly on his father’s path. The love for music that he genuinely has has died a sad death in his chasing the musical notes of someone else’s tanpura. And he considers that as his defeat.