The last couple of weeks have offered me a little bit of
free time to watch three films. Incidentally, all three – Ram Prasad ki Tehrvi,
Paglait, and Milestone – deal with death and how those close to you deal with
it and cope up in their own different ways. All three were good, but Milestone
Stands out for its sensitive and realistic portrayal.
Milestone's principal character is a truck driver called Ghalib, and aptly so as the movie is akin to slow-moving poetry. But the ending left me baffled; it was too abrupt, too simplistic, and seemed to not do justice to the movie. I thought maybe I haven't understood the end, so I started scouring the internet to see if anyone has provided a viable explanation. There were a few blogs that tried to explain the ending, but I wasn't convinced. Anyways, since it was past midnight, I decided to sleep over it and worry about it the next day. But possibly, I was thinking about it subconsciously in my sleep because once I woke up, I realized there is a possible explanation. Not sure if this is what the makers had in mind, but this is my interpretation.
Before we proceed, I must caution that the explanation will have many spoilers, so if you haven't watched the movie, stop and catch it on Netflix.
The film takes us along the journey of Ghalib, who is nearing retirement and has recently lost his wife. He injures himself on the job and picks up a backache that makes it difficult for him to follow the career that he so loves. We are informed that not all was well between him and his wife through several sequences of events. An elder's council in his village is involved in mediating a dispute between him and his wife's family members. Things are not so rosy at work also. One of his best friends and colleague loses his job to his assistant due to age-related health issues. Ghalib is also assigned a new pupil who he reluctantly accepts, and that further aggravates his insecurities. Through his various interactions, we know Ghalib is an honest man who desperately wants to keep his job and is even ready to part with his life savings to the new assistant just to keep his job.
Things are reaching a crescendo, and then all of a sudden, one fine morning, everything falls back in place. The assistant, while driving alone, has an accident and wrecks the truck, which puts him out of favor with the company owners. Ghalib's backache miraculously disappears. The film ends with a phone call from the assistant's elder sister, who thanks Ghalib for fixing everything. It starts raining, and the credits roll.
Lingering question: What happened? Why the sudden change of fortunes?
Here is my take: Ghalib made sure that his deceased wife's family was well cared for, including having a permanent source of income. We were earlier informed that things were not well between him and his wife as she possibly suspected him of having an extramarital affair. It eventually becomes evident that he loved his wife but couldn't devote as much time as he wanted to her because of his dedication to his job. Also, Ghalib is not very good at expressing his emotions. The only exception is when the assistant offers to leave the job if Ghalib agrees to marry his elder sister. In a rare show of emotions, Ghalib reacts angrily and slaps the assistant. I think his wife's soul must have felt relieved of whatever complaints she had against Ghalib. She must have intervened to set things right for him, including the assistant's accident which he escaped unscathed but ran out of favor with owners for the losses he had incurred, Ghalib's backache going away, and him getting his job back. The phone call, in the end, was symbolic of his wife thanking him for setting things right, and the rain possibly signified Ghalib's tears of grief.
Conclusion: A lot of us are dealing with the devastation and loss of near and dear ones due to COVID, and that may be the reason for movies based on death, grief, and loss coming in of late. Milestone is a gem of a film and reiterates that not everyone deals with the loss the same way; everyone has a different coping mechanism.
Surinder Vicky as Ghalib and Laksvir Saran as the assistant are convincing, as are all the other supporting characters. I hope this film is not just an exception but becomes the norm in terms of the portrayal of Punjabi characters. This breaks the stereotype of loud and funny people in turbans shouting "balle-balle" every two minutes. It is an earthy, emotional, and sensitive portrayal—credit to Ivan Ayr for crafting this masterpiece.
