School Tiffin

I saw Do Dooni Chaar on the 9th of January, Dhobi Ghaat on the 24th, Band Baaja Baraat on the 17th of March, Shor In The City on the 1st of May, Ragini MMS on the 14th - In just about 5 months, that is a pretty great platter from Hindi cinema. But, I watched a film today that has made me the happiest I have been in a very long time. And sad too.

Happy, obviously, because it is a masterpiece that needs to be seen by anyone who watches Hindi films. I feel a deep deep satisfaction when I see new stories being told, new characters being introduced in an industry that sees so little of originality.

I am sad because I know this film is not going to recover its costs in all likelihood, because we always have preconceived thoughts about certain films. And so we don't watch 'children's films'. Also because there are so many Stanleys out there, who manage to smile through really difficult lives. I have known some of them. I am trying to do something for some of them.

I once went on a trek with some of my schoolmates into the jungles of Jharkhand when I was in Class VI and was undergoing a training period to be inducted into the Boy Scouts. The trek was the finale of a fairly rigorous week of training. We were expected to be gone all day and had been instructed to bring suitably fortifying lunches. My mom was slightly tied up with work and our maid-servant was on leave, so I carried puris left over from the previous night, with some tomato ketchup for lunch. When we stopped for lunch after a very tedious morning, and I saw the other kids opening their tiffin boxes to sumptuous lunches of aloo paratha and sabzi or some such thing, I felt embarrassed. I sat alone and had my lunch, too ashamed to share my meager food with others.

But, I was still carrying lunch.

To be ridiculed by your teacher in front of your classmates for any little thing feels like a calamity when you are in school. For being considered unworthy to share their lunch because you don't bring your own tiffin must be mortifying.

Amol Gupte claimed to have played a more significant role in Taare Zameen Par than he was credited for. I saw his role in Kaminey. And now I have seen Stanley Ka Dabba. I think if there was a war between Aamir Khan and Gupte, I would probably fight on Gupte's side.

And Partho Gupte, thanks for this. If you never work in front of, or behind, the camera, after this film, people will still remember you.