Hawa Hawaii ..ovivivivi

Two days after Stanley's I watched this one. I had seen the promos on television with nondescript actors and wondered at its contents. But within first five minutes I was hooked. Especially after seeing a scene where father and son are singing bhajan and next instant the "diya" goes off. Such a nice symbolism of death. The next instant we see the boy searching work and starts working as a helper in a tea stall to help his mother, and explains just so well to her when she says to him to stop working. Holding her hands, he says " do aur do kuthe hote hai .. Char". He finds his passion in the night time skating classes held in front of the tea stall. Friendship is here too. But in form of more impoverished friends like a rag picker, a garage helper, a flower vendor and a sardonic worker. Poor and limited means, they make a makeshift skates for him with things discarded and name it havahawai. The boy aka Arjun leans by observing the coach, much like mahabharata's eklavya. The coach is delighted to have him and pushes and forges him and makes him strive harder and harder for the goal which is district championship. Small instances like burger boy aka rich lad, spoilt but gold at heart, or where one insecure mother asks which age group will Arjun participate. The coache's relationship with his elder brother who was earlier a national champion and now an investment banker in U.S. His passion for skating already fizzled but the coaches still raging on. Arjun's failure to attend state championship makes his coach aware of the reality of Arjun's life. The dirt, the filth, and his poor but lovable friends. He is unable to participate in Mumbai due to acute jaundice but participates from yavatmal, his district. An instance makes him aware and us as well of his father's failure to grow cotton , his death with cardiac arrest and he runs, runs for his life and he wins. He joins a school with help of his teacher who then invites him for state championship. We realize that Arjun has finally found his dream, his motivation, and his strength to fly high in life. This movie was directed by same director who directed Stanley ka dabba and same actor who played Stanley has played Arjun. Too good movie. For which I missed an entire afternoon nap and later phasing out of my pilla's up down lines.. Needless to say, I slept well at night.

an afternoon with Stanley's lunchbox

I had read about "Stanley ka dabba" in movie reviews and of course my favorite Wikipedia. But none of this prepared me for what lay ahead. An innocent school boy. His too cute friends o stand by him through thick and thin. The daily school activities and an evil read phagomanic teacher. We have all seen it . All experienced it. I have had my share of teachers, some of them plain sadistic others weird but diva Dutta as miss rosy was just too cute and good to be true. A beacon in a dark night. And father as principal, we had sister who made as as disciplined as we are today. The fluency in English is her gift to us. Who scared us of dire consequences if we talk in anything except English in school. Most of the teachers were more of "patya takne (a slang term in Marathi which states doing something just as a duty) types. Anyways again digressing. Then there was a refreshingly true diva jagdale's science teacher who instead of appreciating his creativity in form of actual lighthouse, insists on bookish and topic related project. But the too good and just so real was the khadoos, verma sir aka ample Gupta. Eeks the way he slurped on his student's dubba and his reprimanding Stanley for not getting his own. Going far as telling him not to come to school if he does not carry lunch box of his own.  The beans are spilled by his friends to miss rosy who confronts him. Later when Stanley gets his own lunch box and serves him , he has enough and finally leaves Stanley alone. Then there is competition in which Stanley participates. Things look very bright but we understand only in the end that Stanley is a child laborer, and receives daily verbal and physical abuse from his guardian aka uncle aka hotel owner where Stanley works. Oops that hit hard. The film ends with Stanley serving everyone from his lunch box.
What I liked about the movie was a real school scenario, real teachers and real life at the end of the day. Wow. It touched that core that all the gyrating moves, sick dialogues and melodramatic dialogues  had killed or so I thought. This experience made me excited for another movie and I found one.. Two days later.