Pareeksha Review: A Comment on expensive education going away from common man

Film-  Pareeksha- The Final Test
Director: Prakash Jha
Artist: Adil Hussain, Sanjay Suri, Priyanka Bose, Shubham Jha, Shaurya Deep, Anant Kumar Gupta, Seema Singh, Sheena Rajpal
Star – 3

Prakash Jha is among those filmmakers who are known for commenting on political-social issues through their films. From ‘Damul’ to ‘Death Penalty’, ‘Gangajal’, ‘Kidnapping’, ‘Politics’, ‘Reservation’, ‘Chakravyuh’, ‘Satyagraha’ and now ‘Pariksha’ they are keeping this connection. ‘Exam’ was made with theaters in mind, but due to the unprecedented circumstances arising out of Corona, the film has been released on the OTT platform ‘G5’. It is also a coincidence that the film has come when a new education policy has been announced in the country. Although the education system in India has always been an occasional subject, but it has become more contemporary in the current perspective.

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In the last few decades, the state of government education in India has worsened. There was a time when government schools were low and literacy rates were also low, but people from government schools were successful in reaching good positions. But over time, under a well-planned conspiracy, government education was made so that people lost faith in it. Private education institutions, on the other hand, grew rapidly. Consequently, education took the form of milk business. This private education became so expensive that poor people got out of reach and their children lagged behind in this era of liberalization. Many people dared to give good education to their children and they kept drowning in debt. ‘Examination’ is basically based on this burning subject.
Butchi Paswan (Adil Hussain) lives in Ambedkar Nagar, a Dalit settlement in Ranchi and drives a rickshaw. His wife Radhika (Priyanka Bose) works in a utensil factory. His son Bulbul (Shubham Jha) is quite intelligent in reading. Bucci takes the children of the city’s largest school to school on his rickshaw and wakes up in his mind to teach his son in the same school. He thinks that good education is the only way to get his family out of a bad situation. He does anything, overcomes all obstacles, gets his son enrolled in that school. But the real problem in front of him now arises when he finds that in big schools there are a lot of expenses besides fees. Poor children who have somehow reached such schools also have to face class discrimination. 

In order to spend the expenses of his son Shubham’s education, Buchi gets the situation to such a point that he had not even thought about it. Meanwhile, senior Superintendent of Police Kailash Anand (Sanjay Suri) of Ranchi comes on the scene. He gets to know the story of Buchi. He goes to the colony and starts teaching Bulbul and other children. This thing passes unnoticed to the elite people of the city and they try to put a ball in the way of Bulbul …

In this film, director Prakash Jha has highlighted many other political-social issues besides education. While this is not a bad thing, the film is not able to do justice to its central theme completely. Actually, Prakash Jha is so perfect in his craft that when seen from that point of view, the film looks a little lighter. The script of the film is fine, but it is not as agile as in the screenplay of Prakash Jha’s other films ‘Gangajal’ and ‘Kidnapping’. Jha has also linked the current education system to the caste system in such a way that Dalits and backwards do not have access to expensive education, but this is not completely true. The truth is that not all people who are resourceless have access to this expensive education. The film picks up an existing theme, but the reality is not present in that form, Which was needed There should have been a little more work on the screenplay. Prakash Jha has not appeared as a director at his best. But this film does not bore. It makes many people think, emotional too.

The biggest feature of the film is the acting of the actors. Adil Hussain’s performance as Buchi is superb. He is brilliant in the role of a rickshaw puller ready to do anything to give good education to the child. Priyanka Bose’s expressions have been fantastic. She has managed to play her role with full confidence. Shubham Jha in the role of Kishore Bulbul has done his work with full quality. Sanjay Suri is good in the small role of Kailash Anand inspired by former Bihar Director General of Police Abhayanand. All the other actors have also done justice to their character. The film raises an important topic and has been successful to a great extent. Such films should be seen.