Paathshaala

There is a fleeting shot in Paathshaala of Shahid Kapoor teaching Wordsworth to a bunch of kids who look quite his own age. Thankfully, he’s not reciting poetry, but the sight of him holding a book with Wordsworth scribbled on the blackboard is enough to make you recoil in utter disbelief. The film itself attempts to tackle a relevant theme, the commercialisation of education, how schools are becoming profit-oriented business houses than centres of learning. Despite this worthy aim, Paathshaala turns out to be painfully boring, dull, lifeless and bland. There is nothing to hold the audience interest and the big culprit is the scattered, disjointed and unfinished screenplay. So Nana Patekar hogs the screen at the start then reappears in the end to deliver a benumbing speech. Ayesha’s character of a nutrionist has been thrust in to provide romantic relief but the writer conveniently forgets to develop the Ayesha-Shahid track in any manner. The rest of the cast is just a string of caricatures. Nothing to learn here.