As the spirited educationist, she gets burdened by lines like, “We forget words, but remember actions,” and “…this is a new chapter, a stronger me, a better me.” The steady onslaught of intercuts (though well managed by editor Sachindra Vats), defuses the mystery of Firdaus. Pranutan, granddaughter of Nutan and daughter of Mohnish and Aarti Bahl, approaches her scenes rigidly. It soon becomes clear that Notebook - for all its postcard framings and poetic peg - is still very much about one thing: introducing two new faces to the world, and serving as their showreel. The effect is no less jarring than the jolt felt by the character. Zaheer leaps and kicks and even blocks punches with a fractured arm. The film appears stripped of any ‘launch film’ showboating (for the first few scenes, it just shows boats), until an utterly needless fight scene breaks. On his first day, he finds a notebook left behind by the previous teacher, Firdaus, and starts flipping through the pages.
He’s a former army officer who returns to civilian life as the new instructor of Wular Public School, a remote establishment in the backwaters of Kashmir.
Physicality creates other problems for Kabir. Producer Salman Khan has championed Notebook as a clean romance (he famously refuses to kiss in his own movies), but it’s perhaps unwise to replace bad teachers with heavily bored ones. Not only is it sad to watch young hormones squandered thus, but the thought of two school teachers, in separate timelines, tossing off to a piece of rope while holding back recess, is deeply disturbing.
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