The intention of Zaigham Imam’s Alif (also the first letter of Arabic, Persian and Hebrew), narrated by Jaya Bachchan, is all good: to stress on the significance of education. And so the oft repeated line, “ jeene ke liye ladna nahin, padhna zaroori hai ” (in life it’s important to learn than to fight). Moreover, the film makes a case for progressive, modern education as against orthodox learning. You can learn about God by first educating yourself about the world, it states. Set in the backward, Muslim-dominated Doshipura area of Varanasi it has Raza (Danish Husain) wanting his son Ali (Saud Mansuri) to become a doctor rather than a hakim like himself. He is coaxed into getting his son admitted to a mainstream school by his sister Zahra (who has been living in Pakistan for almost four decades) than making him continue studying in a neighbourhood madrasa .
These good intentions alone, however, can’t deliver good cinema. Alif is too caught up in old-fashioned storytelling for its own good. It’s too busy trying to deliberately recreate the milieu of the Muslim socials of yore. It’s the world of shayari , patangbaazi , etiquette and affectations and those scarves that Salman Khan turned into a fashion statement with Ek Tha Tiger (2012). There’s also a half-baked love track playing on just for the heck of it. Add to that the loudness and excess — in characterisation, relationships, emotions, dialogue and acting — and even the presence of a couple of good actors can’t help the film. In fact, you can see the otherwise fine performers, like Husain and Azeem, fall prey to the cringe-worthy melodrama and dire sentimentality. Way too many tears are shed onscreen even as the audience stays totally dry-eyed.
