There have been many films that have showcased characters with speech impairment but only a few have come close to reality. The upcoming movie Hichki tries to bring the disorder to the forefront through Naina’s journey. Sangeeta Yadav speaks to experts to bring you a report
From Shah Rukh Khan in Baazigar, Dharmendra in Chupke Chupke, Shakti Kapoor in Satte Pe Satta, Tusshar Kapoor in Golmaal, Vicky Kaushal in Zubaan, Shahid Kapoor in Kaminey, Kriti Kulhari in Indu Sarkar, Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif in Jagga Jasoos to Colin Firth in The King's Speech — filmmakers down the decades have tried giving insights into the life of speech-impaired people. Where some filmmakers made it as a joke by weaving the issue of speech disorder into their comic characters, others unfolded the subject sensitively and seriously giving the medical condition the focus it deserves.
One such film is Hichki which brings to light the Tourette Syndrome, a neuropsychiatric disorder that makes Naina, played by Rani Mukherjee, stutter. While some poked fun at her, others were visibly annoyed by her impairment. The film is an adaptation of a Hollywood film Front of the Class (2008), based on the book, Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me The Teacher I Never Had by Brad Cohen.
To get into the skin of the character, Rani met a lot of people beset with the syndrome. During the promotion of the film, she said: “Tourette Syndrome isn’t a subject but a part of many lives. During research, I met many children afflicted by it and their parents who have not been able to come out in public about the condition.”
Himanshu Khanna, chief speech therapist-cum-audiologist at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi, feels that the film portrayal of people with a speech disorder is not justified. “Stammering is a behavioural or psychological condition and not a physical disorder. It can happen due to anxiety, fear, nervousness, tension, lack of confidence and even as an after-effect of a serious illness or accident. It is also a mental condition in which people think that they have a stammering problem but it is not the case. The portrayal of stammering in cinema is not realistic. Sometimes it is beyond reason. I remember in Daddy (1998), starring Anupam Kher, it was shown that Pooja Bhatt’s stammering gets cured with a kiss! Moreover, it is not fun to laugh about stammering as done by Shakti Kapoor in Satte Pe Satta and Tushaar Kapoor in Golmaal. It is a sensitive subject which never gets correctly presented on screen,” Khanna says.
Actor-turned-director Samir Soni feels that the portrayal entirely depends on what the story is and the director’s vision. The actors enact it accordingly. “Every director has his own interpretation. Sometimes, they use stammering as a slapstick ploy and make it theatrical and caricaturised which is not in good taste. In the 1970s and 80s, cinema was not realistic. But if you look at art cinema during the time of Shyam Benegal, the portrayal was pretty accurate. Nowadays, since more realistic cinema is coming up, the portrayal is realistic. Some still caricaturise it but that depends on the genre of a film,” Soni opines.
Though such roles are challenging for actors they do undergo serious training with speech therapists and the portrayal totally depends to what extent the story is exploring the character. “It depends on how you portray the person and how much you want to explore his or her condition. If the film is not about the speech-impaired character, an actor can’t really go deep into portraying the nuances of stuttering. Speech impairment is just a small part which gets sidelined as the focus of the film is not that. For instance, in Kaminey, Shahid Kapoor did a fabulous job but the film is not really about his speech-impairment. If a film is based entirely, say on a blind character, it will explore the condition deeply. The actor then needs to do that much more homework. But if it is a peripheral character, it is not going to matter. It totally depends on the importance of that character in the film,” Soni explains.
Though Indu Sarkar was a political drama, Kirti Kulhari’s life as a poet who struggled her entire life trying to overcome a congenital stammer was just in the background. However, there are very few films, like The King Speech, which centre around a hero or heroine’s medical condition. Colin Firth made a virtue out of stammering, as he portrayed to near perfection how it was holding him (the king) back and how he overcame it.
Hichki, too, focusses on the journey of Naina who faces lots of rejection in life due to stammering which is very realistically portrayed.
“Films like The King’s Speech had a realistic portrayal of how Firth stammers and what was its cause. It was not a cliché stereotypical portrayal. There are different kinds of stammers and different reasons for its cause. Some are psychological, some neurological, some subconscious and some due to anxiety and lack of confidence. It totally depends upon what the film is all about,” Soni says.