Gunjan Saxena Kragil Girl Trailer, If Wings Could Fly

 There is a moment  in the  trailer  of Gunjan Sexena where a  smirky senior, played  by that  chameleon actor Vineet Kumar,  tells  the female airforce pilot  that there is  no ladies toilet on  the premise because this  place is meant  for men  only.

 The moment is  obviously  airlifted  from that  wonderful Hollywood  film  Hidden Figures  about three African American women working at NASA.

Women in  workplaces  where men have ruled since Adam invited Eve for a bite,are looked upon as aliens  from outerspace. The Kargil  Girl  Gunjan Saxena dared to  dream, dared to fly, dared to  break into  a male bastion.How dare she!

The film version of  her story has Janhavi  Kapoor putting up a brave show as  Gunjan Saxena.Miss Kapoor has a  gentle kind  face  that suggests vast  unplumbed depths  of resilience  and determination.At times she reminds us of her legendary mother. But most of the time, she doesn’t.Which is good for her.

The other performance  that caught my attention  in  the  trailer is that  of Pankaj Tripathi as Gunjan Sexena’s supportive father.Pankaj is an actor who can  play anyone’s support system. He looks  more than  Janhvi’s father than  Boney Kapoor and mouths platitudinous lines of encouragement as  though he had  just thought them  up.The hallmark  of a true actor is  he can make the telephone directory sound like Harry Potter.Pankaj can do that.

A  lot of  the  suggested drama  in  the trailer seem  to be formulistic: the young  determined girl scaling the walls  of  gender discrimination with her father’s support.Arm-wrestling, literally,with masculine arrogance.I guess heroes nowadays come in all shapes sizes. God know, Karan  Johar’s production house  needs a hero  in these  trying times.

 High flying hero in pleats and skirts  coming up.