‘Notebook’ is an Average Portrayal of Life in a Dying Kashmir

Kashmir is a never-ending pool of heart-wrenching human stories that most of us are afraid to listen to. Stories so deeply caught up in the snare of violence and political turmoil, the innocence of the raw human emotion gets silent in its grasp. Notebook, an adaptation of the Thai drama The Teacher’s Diary (2014), directed by Nitin Kakkar, is an attempt at narrating exactly one of those tales.

Introducing debutants Zaheer Iqbal and Pranutan Bahl, the film tackles the story of a young man who joins an isolated, broken school as a teacher. There, he finds a notebook that served as the previous teacher Firdous’ diary. Slowly, he falls in love with her, taking her experiences as a balm to heal his own past horrors as an army officer. What works best for this film is the innocence of the children, their faces will melt your heart and remind you of the humanness of Kashmir that we have slowly begun to forget.

Unfortunately, the lead pair doesn’t add much. If anything, their unexpected love story seems forced and unnecessary. 

The film revolves best around the dark “mausam aur mahaul” of Kashmir, finding its backbone in a number of issues, like the Kashmiri Pandit exodus, the spread of extremist terror, and the lack of basic freedom. It is a commendable reminder of the importance of education, presenting a notebook as a metaphor for fearlessness and passion.

The performances of the lead actors are average, and often pull you back from fully immersing into the magic of the setting or the poignancy of its reality. 

With that said, the film is beautifully shot. The deepness of the lake surrounding the school is poetic, and the beautiful trees and fallen leaves make the screen a treat for the eyes. The lead pair do not meet until the very climax, but what is unfortunate is how it doesn’t impact you as the audience at all.

The film does make you feel grateful, and rightfully throws light on the importance of education. It treats the profession of teaching with a respect we haven’t seen since Taare Zameen Par.

The main problem with the film seems to be the many ingredients that do not deliver enough in time. The theme of the film does paint over some of its blatant flaws, but whether that is enough to sail this through is a question I am unable to confidently say yes to. Everything seems surface level and you can see through the attempt the director makes to drive a point home. More often than not, it gets lost. The film doesn’t give you time to absorb a story. Just when you begin to , a new one begins.

It also struggles to find balance between raw emotion and Salman Khan - level dramatic fist fights. 

Whatever one gets to see is well shot, but the emotional impact is little. The strongest scene is the climax where one of the students picks his “taleem” over the gun, again, the child’s performance and confusion is the icing on the top.

The scene makes you feel proud of him, almost making you want to root for his future, just like that of Kashmir.

Overall, the movie is a good one-time-watch. The lead actors felt highly replaceable in this film. Their roles itself needed more convincing, one that got lost in their ill-fitted romance. For a couple out on a date, this might seem forgivable. To the rest of us, Notebook could have done more.