By Pankaj Sachdeva

Advait Chandan’s Secret Superstar is a sweet and a predictable story of Insia (Zaira Wasim) who wants to be a singer. Her authoritarian father Farookh (Raj Arjun) does not approve of her singing. Insia’s loving mother Najma (Meher Vij) wants to fulfill every dream of her daughter. On her mother’s suggestion, Insia dons a burkha and makes a video of her singing which instantly goes viral on the internet. She becomes famous as the secret superstar and gets a call from a Hindi film music director Shakti Kumaarr (Aamir Khan) to record a song for him. She agrees to do it and, in return, asks for his help to free her mother from her violent and abusive father.

The film’s premise is based on dreams. It points out that everyone has a right to dream and one should work towards making those dreams come true. Insia tells her mother, “Sone jaungi toh automatically sapne nahi ayenge. Sapnon ke bina kisi cheez ka point nahi hota hai. Na sona ka, na jagne ka, na jeena ka, na marne ka. Sapne dekhna toh basic hota hai. Itna toh sabko allowed hona chahiye.“ There is no point in living if we are not working to fulfill our dreams. Everyone should be allowed to dream. This took me to the conversation between Simran (Kajol) and Lajjo (Farida Jalal) in Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. In her diary, Simran wrote about her dream man. Her Bau Ji (Amrish Puri), however, had already fixed her wedding with Kuljeet (Parmeet Sethi). When Simran learns about it, she tears the pages of her diary where she had written about the andekha, anjaana lover. Simran tells her mother, “Main toh bhool hi gayi thi, Maa, ke mujhe sapne dekhne ka bhi koi haq nahi.” I had forgotten that I don’t even have the right to dream. Her mother replies, “Sapne dekho, zaroor dekho, bas unke pure hone ki shart mat rakho.” Dream anything but without the condition that they have to be fulfilled. The relationship between Simran and Lajjo finds some resemblance in the one between Insia and Najma. While Simran’s father might not be physically abusive towards Lajjo, there is a sense of freedom that the women in his household feel when he is not at home. They dance on English songs when he is not there. Likewise, Insia and Najma feel suffocated in the presence of Farookh and experience a sense of relief when he is not at home. They, too, dance together happily when he is away.

Insia becomes the secret superstar after taking her mother’s advice to wear a burkha while recording her songs. She hoped that the burkha would protect her from her father’s ire as he did not like her love for music. She hides herself to make her dream come true. Last year, Alankrita Shirvastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha also used the burkha as a symbol to keep the desires of women hidden. Unsurprisingly, it also had a theme related to dreams. The four women in the film lived with their lipstick vale sapne in a building called Hawai Manzil, appropriately named, as fulfilling even their simple dreams seemed like a far-fetched escapist fantasy. There is a scene in the film when Leela (Ahana Kumra) tells Shireen (Konkona Sensharma), “Pata hai, Di, hamari galti kya hai. Hum sapne bahut dekhte hain.” Their fault is that they dream too much. The men in the film were portrayed as insensitive pricks that some of the questionable actions of the women could be condoned. However, it did not feel that Secret Superstar was making a similar comment on men. Not all men are as vile as Insia’s father. Chintan tells Insia that his father is not a bad man even though his mother left him refuting her point that the men whose wives leave them are of a questionable character. In fact, he says that his mother believes that, in such situations, no one is at fault. Kisi ka fault nahi hota hai. The character of Shakti Kumaarr is also portrayed as someone who is different from his sexist image as seen through the eyes of the media. He is shown to be someone who is kind and sensitive from inside. Even the husband of Insia’s tuition teacher seemed to be a decent man.

The film handles scenes of domestic abuse with sensitivity. The behavior of Insia’s father is extremely obnoxious that one can feel the terror that Najma and Insia would have felt in his presence. When he comes from work, he gives his dirty socks to Najma. After coming back from a long trip, he inquires only about his son Guddu’s well-being and does not bother asking about Insia. When Guddu spills tea on him, he does not get wildly angry at him or slap him, but when Najma does not put salt in food, he flies into a violent rage. He addresses his son with the respectable ‘Aap‘, and takes him to outings, ignoring Insia on the pretext that she has to study. It was bewildering to see that Insia’s grandmother does not say anything to Farookh. She silently watches him beating his wife. When she narrated the story of Insia’s birth, I initially felt that she made up the entire story. But it was not the case. It was her story that brought clarity to the meaning of Insia’s name—a woman. Like Insaan means a man, Insia means a woman. The film is about the dreams of an Insia (woman).

Early in the film, Insia wanted to take her father’s permission to participate in a singing competition (again, like Simran, who wanted to take permission from her father to go on a trip to Europe). Before she is able to broach the subject with him, her father gets angry at her mother, and throws away all the food. Insia cleans the floor using the pamphlet for the competition as if telling us that her dreams have become a pochha (mop). The film uses similar symbolism to depict Insia’s desire for freedom. The airlines that she travels on when she is going to Mumbai is called Azad Air. Azad meaning free. The scene where Insia fights for her seat is reminiscent of Kaira (Alia Bhatt) fighting with an uncle for her seat in Gauri Shinde’s Dear Zindagi. Insia always had to fight for the window seat as if making the point that one has to fight for their rights. Later, we see a few shots of birds flying in the air, representing Insia’s desire to fly away. In the classroom, the poem that the students learn is called Mane Joine Udi Jata Pankhione meaning the birds that fly away at my sight. At another stage, Insia goes to a zoo and sees a trapped leopard in a cage. A song plays with the lyrics that say, “O re manwa, chhor zid karna, andar se band karle tu, sapno ko pinjare main.” O heart, stop insisting. Lock the dreams within the cage. It is as if she is also like the leopard whose dreams are trapped in a cage. In the final moments of the films, Insia is called on to the stage at the awards ceremony. She finally takes off her burkha revealing her face to the world for the first time. This act of hers again signified a sense of freedom. She does not need to hide her true self from the world anymore. However, the throwing away of her burkha did not seem to be a comment on her religion. It only felt like a symbolic act rather than something representing a deep politico-religious meaning.

There are quite a few other such tiny symbols in the film. Insia travels to Mumbai and sings Nachdi Phira for Shakti Kumaarr. After she finishes recording the song, everyone in the studio applauds her. As Insia is in the recording room, she cannot hear them. She can only see them clapping for her. In the film’s final moments, Najma leaves her husband at the airport. The door shuts on him and he keeps on calling her but his voice cannot be heard. These two scenes are similar in the way that they are presented. Both the scenes are applauding the woman. In the first case, it is Insia’s voice being praised, while in the latter, it is Najma’s inner voice that is being praised. When Najma leaves the airport, the police inspector tells her that if she leaves, she won’t be able to come inside again. She tells him that it will be the best thing. In the recording studio scene earlier, it was Insia’s voice that came out and never went back inside. Her voice reached every corner of the world. In a way, both of them have come out of the (glass) cages.

The society where Insia and her family stay in Vadodara is called “Modern Colony.” Moments later, Insia’s teacher asks her to give an example of irony. This board could well serve to be that example. The values espoused by Farookh Malik, Insia’s father, showed that there is nothing remotely modern about him. At another stage, he asks Najma to not wear the burkha when they were going to an acquaintance’s wedding. The reason he gives her that the people at the wedding have a modern outlook and they might not like to see women in burkha, as if he is himself acknowledging the regressiveness of his beliefs.

On being asked about her mother, Insia compares her to a naïve child. She says her mother, like small kids, is cute, and stupid. She is scared all the time. She has to be always told what is right for her, and what is not good for her. During a scene, Insia pushes her mother on the stage to take part in a magic show. It is, usually, the parents who stand away and see their kids perform on the stage. However, in this case, the situation is reversed. Najma is the kid here. Insia displays more maturity and becomes the didactic one. She is the mother to her child-like mother. She devises the plan to free her mother from her abusive father. She teaches her mother the importance of dreams. At an early stage, Insia had told her mother, “Sapne dekhna to basic hota hai. Itna toh sabko allowed hona chahiye.” Najma says these exact same lines to her husband at the airport when they are about to leave for Saudi Arabia. We often see in the films that it is the children who remember their parents’ teachings, but here, it is the mother who learns from her daughter. It is Insia’s courage that inspires Najma to fight for herself.

Some of the other characters in the film are so innately good that, at times, they end up overshadowing Insia. Chintan is one such character. He is a true ally of Insia. He keeps all her secrets and literally helps her cross all the barriers (such as the locked gate) in her path to success. He is always there for her, even if Insia behaved rudely with him. The film’s sweetest moment is the one when Insia writes her email password on his hands. He starts blushing because the very person he likes a lot chose his own name as her password. Only special people get to share.

I also felt that the film was making a comment on the kind of music present in contemporary films. The film opens with a group of children in a train playing a game of Antakshari and singing songs, such as Beedi, Kala Chashma, and Munni Badnaam Hui. A woman passenger sitting in the next berth makes a strange face when she hears these songs. Moments later, Insia plays a ‘slow’ song on her guitar, and the woman smiles as she likes that kind of songs. This disapproval is repeated at many other places in the film. Najma says Shakti Kumaarr’s songs sound like the remix of a nice song that was never made. When Insia records a song for him, Shakti tells her to sing from the body and not from her heart. This critique is often heard now. He, then, comments that these days everyone wants a fast song. Insia tells him that Aashiqui 2 had slow songs but everyone liked them. Shakti tells it was a stroke of luck. The music of Secret Superstar is good enough, but somehow, it did not reach the high levels of popularity, in a way, proving Shakti’s point to be true. Also, I must add that the background music in the film is definitely inspired by the music in Abhishek Kapoor’s Fitoor, which also had music by Amit Trivedi. Some notes feel exactly the same.

The performances of the cast, such as Zaira Wasim, Meher Vij, Raj Arun, and Tirth Sharma are excellent. I am surprised Raj Arun did not win many accolades for his role. He was excellent. However, Aamir Khan’s performance was not that great. He is not terrible but it felt that he was struggling in the role. It did not come across as a natural performance. His character Shakti Kumaarr was clearly inspired by some industry actor. There is a point where he says that every year, the industry nominates him but never gives him an award. Maybe it was a hint to Salman Khan. Also, I liked that Secret Superstar did not infantilize its children. The portrayal of the children was largely authentic (except that it is hard to believe that class tenth children still play with trump cards). As a trivia collector and a chemistry lover, I tried to solve the questions in Insia’s tuition test. #RedoxReactions. The tuition teacher also taught them the process of iron extraction in a blast furnace. This is, actually, the most popular question in class tenth board examinations.

There are two scenes in Secret Superstar that have the exact same lines. These scenes repeatedly mention that Baroda is only a small city in the universe and the world is too big. One can leave everything behind and fly away to success. Like the bubbles of a soft drink, those who have the talent in them will find a way to rise up. It is a simplistic message that ignores the reality of the industry. As the wise acting guru Nand Kishore from Luck By Chance said, “Yahan talent ke saath saath luck bhi bahut bada factor hota hai.” Talent, luck, and nepotism. But that is a larger discussion for some other day. Till then, one can enjoy the pleasures of a sweet little film.

[Read more of the author’s work on his blog here.]