And they don’t call the police or the army on him, they just focus on wanting his son to have a chance to go to school. ![]() The father of one of their students is disturbing, has a gun, seems odd. Her parents were killed, and she reacted by teaching school. His family was thrown out of their homeland, and he reacted by coming back and teaching school. It’s especially lovely in context of the Kashmir setting, with a Hindu Pandit hero and a Muslim heroine. It’s a lovely small simple lesson, that all you have to do is the caring thing, and that is heroic and romantic enough. And it never does! The most heroic thing and the most romantic thing our hero and heroine do is simply try to be good teachers and help these kids learn. I kept waiting for the film to shift, I kept thinking “I should enjoy these adorable children and soft lessons about human kindness and doing the right thing, because it’s going to turn into a big drama any minute now”. And all the other books I have read about that particular experience. And Anne of Avonlea, about Anne Shirley teaching school. This movie reminded me of Those Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingall Wilder’s memoir of her years teaching school. It is unique to each person, and yet the rhythm of the school year gives it a universal pattern. It combines the lonely reflectiveness of the hermitage, with the sacrificing personal growth of parenthood. There’s something really significant and special about the one room school house and the teachers there. You could set this same plot in the American West, in present day American Alaska, in Thailand (where the original was set), basically any time or place that has a remote school. It ends with them having tea together on the porch of the school. And finally, he surprises her one day at school, showing up just in time to save her from a disgruntled parent. She falls in love with him through the notes he left. Her engagement falls apart and she returns to teaching at the same school, and finds her notebook there with his notes added. So he offers to leave at the end of the term. He also learns that his kids are failing, because he isn’t a good enough teacher for them. He goes to the city to find her and learns she is engaged. Her experiences and thoughts inform his reactions, he bonds with the kids and starts to feel cleansed. He is bored and alone and starts reading a notebook left behind by the last teacher, a young woman Pranutan Bahl. Our hero Zaheer Iqbal is a young soldier feeling lost, he takes a job teaching at a one room school in Kashmir. I love this plot, because the idea is so simple and so easily translatable to any time and place you need. And if you can see it, avoid this review and read the no spoilers review instead. ![]() ![]() Don’t expect groundbreaking brilliance, but if you want sweet happy little stories, this would be it. Loved this movie! The more I think about it, the more I like it.
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