New Delhi, April 26 -- Writer-director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan bookends his 129-minute biopic on social reformers and educationists Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule with the events of 1897. Poona is devastated by the plague. Savitribai runs across parched land to bring an ailing child to a makeshift medical camp.

Before the doctors can pronounce a prognosis, events move back in time to 1848. Savitri was a child bride then, married to the slightly older Jyotirao Phule who, even as a teenager, was progressive enough to want his wife to be educated. This did not sit well with his conservative father (Vinay Pathak). Undeterred, Jyotirao continued to encourage not just his wife, but also the younger village girls, to learn.

Now older and more ...