In a matter of five minutes, a retired old Sanskrit teacher disappears from a waiting car when his daughter goes off to quickly run an errand in the market. The ageing professor chances upon an elephant on a busy street from his car window and is suddenly assailed by an urge to follow the animal like a child. When his daughter comes back to find him missing, the father is already on his way into the unknown, delicately perched on the gentle giant led by a mahout.
In Astu, Sanskrit for 'so be it' the professor never fails to invoke the Upanishadic teachings of ‘being in the moment’; sadly, and not without irony, at this point in his life he really can only be invested in the moment. For he suffers from Alzheimer's and is losing grip over his memories and his future course of action. Poignantly laying bare the utter helplessness and gradual disintegration of the human intellect with the onset of dementia, multiple award-winning Marathi film Astu follows this Sanskrit professor and how, fascinated by the elephant, he follows the creature home and is cared for by the impoverished family to whom the elephant belongs, while his own daughter struggles to come to terms with her father's gradual dissipation and her own perceived inability to fully care for him.
Astu was screened as part of Film Festival for Generations, currently showing at India International Centre in Delhi from September 24 to 26. Organised in collaboration with Heidelberg Centre South Asia, the festival brings together a selection of films on ageing-related issues like housing, activity and creativity in old age, dementia and care-giving. Other films in the festival include Adil Hussain-starrer Mukti Bhawan, where a 77-year-old suddenly senses his time is up and prevails on his son to drive him to Varanasi so he can peacefully die there, and the German films Forget Me Not and Sputnik Moment-30 Years Gained. Heidelberg University is also involved in a transmedia project called Elderscapes: Ageing in Urban South Asia. It focuses on the social commitment of older persons, their everyday life and social bonding, on their memories and perspectives and what it means to grow old in a city, at a time when longevity is rising.
In Astu, scenes alternate between Dr Chakrapani Shastri confidently reciting Vedic texts and Zen philosophy, and his steady depletion of mental faculties where in one scene he uses post-its to recall the names of his immediate family members. The film offers a gentle and touching portrait of a family's confusion and their inability to completely fathom the implications of a degenerative mental disease, despite their best efforts: should the daughter let him stay in her own house with her children; should he be sent to live alone in his own house with his books; should he be shipped off to an asylum? Shastri's sudden disappearance for 20 hours precipitates an intense period of soul-searching and a flurry of flashbacks to understand the needs and impulses of an ailing old man. And there is Milind Soman too, playing Shastri's dutiful and level-headed son-in-law.
