Stanley ka DABBA

What a treat and refreshment for the eyes, mind, soul and the heart…! Amazing film…simply amazing… great and a simple story full of soul and told even more simply with no gimmicky stuff, no crazy sub-plots, nothing.

When the film was released, I never thought of watching it, but now I realize, what would have been missed. I guess I got lucky as the director of the film Amol Gupte, came to our institute FTII and brought the film along-with him and I among all the students got a chance to see the film here. Hats off to Amol Gupte for writing the film, directing it and doing justice to the "khadoos" character by playing the role himself and making the audience laugh with him, hate him, pity him yet not losing him.

The film is about Stanley, a boy in IV-F who does not gets a dabba for himself at school and has a different excuse daily for that, his friends share the food with him daily but khadoos, a teacher, objects to that as he himself wants to have the food the students get and by doing so he kicks Stanley from class until he gets his own dabba.

Moving towards the technical path… Deepa Bhatia (Editor) did an amazing job while editing the film and was equally supported and enhanced by the background score of the film…its great, it keeps you in it throughout. Camera work was also good, some angles were really unique and different, especially the one (if u hav seen the film u wil knw) where the kids checkout the reflection of khadoos on the back to the tiffin box.

This film tells you and makes you understand one thing that one can never tell how a kids mind will work in any given situation, like Stanley is an orphan, ill-treated by his uncle, survives at school by just drinking water or sharing food, kicked out of class by a teacher, still he never gives up, he has the zest to learn and do things, he has got such a great imagination (u can tel by listeneing to his excuses for not getting his dabba J). Bearing all this he still lives his life to the fullest, strong hearted, street smart…it gives us a lesson that everyone or anyone just requires an opportunity and support and he/she can prove it to the world.

All in all a very very good film, in all aspects, story wise, technically, acting wise, in all possible manners. Great job done…and glad to have seen it.

In the end it also highlights a social issue of child labour, but this post in not about that and I am probably not the right person to talk about it too, we know its one of the biggest taboos of our society which is eating away our country from within and hopefully someday soon we will walk the path of free will to work.

Road Trip a.k.a Ad-venture

An impromptu decision…(not exactly, but no details there :p) thats what lead to this wonderful and an amazing Road Trip to Nainital. Although we neva reachd there… :p we made a pit stop at Sattal, an amazing spot, valley a few kms before nainital, and the moment we stepped onto the staircase of the resort where we were supposed to stay… a thought crossed my mind "why the hell do we need to go to nainital…lets just stay here, what a view this place has, lets enjoy the beauty n have a complete relaxation holiday"… and well...we ended up staying there only but not for relaxation….no…no…but for all the adventure, that the place had to offer…J

Let me take you back a few hours. We began our journey from Faridabad on road by car and d moment we were in Ghaziabad, it started raining cats and dogs…wat a downpour, and we thought if this is the weather here, what wud b d scene up dre…bt we came out of that bottle-neck pretty quick, and landed ourselves in another one i.e. a flat tire…(shehh :-/) well…and for the first time in my life I pumped air into a car tire with an air-pump (believe me, it takes a toll on u pretty fast…). Most of the next part of the journey was pretty much uneventful, till the moment in took the wheel in my hands, cautiously speeding through the single road, I applied brakes due to traffic and suddenly….BAAMMMM….a bike, crashes into our car n goes our tail-light(came to know later) and all I get to see in the rear-view mirror is the biker getting up and picking up the bike and the pillion rider still lying down…frankly speaking, it never occurred to me that I should stop the car and my instant reflex was to keep going (don't know why…may be guilt, panic, which I later realized was not my mistake at all). After a few minutes I stopped the car, my brother took over the wheel and I came and sat at the back seat and my bhabhi and brothers telling me to just relax and calm down….phewww….(I don't remember some of the journey after that)… well then moving on, we finally reached the point we aimed for – SATTAL (forgot to mention the innumerous times we had to pay toll-tax throughout our trip…neva knew we crossed so many states…. :p)

The moment we stepped out of our car, the whole hectic journey was as if thrown out of the window, the spell-binding beauty of the valley/mountains took away our stress along-with our breaths, the descended clouds as if sucked up all the tiredness from our bodies…and dark stagnant lake just made us realize that we made a great decision by coming here. We waited for a 4x4 vehicle that would take us up to the resort another 1.5 km upwards (yeah…our car cud nt go up there, it required a spl vehicle…and after going that path, we had no doubts dat its true.)

Freshening up, having a bath, relaxing, having a coffee at the porch, with a marvelous view…next step, dinner, a complementary affair…yummmm…. amazing food…each and every thing from soup to dessert….mmuuuaahh…ending the night completely stuffed, result, a good sound sleep…

The all exciting morning came and after having another good stuffing of the food (breakfast)…we descended the mountain towards the lake and the very first activity helped up do away with all the heavy food we had, Boating…paddling the boat was a task that equaled the amount of exercise one would do in the gym on their legs. And the best thing was, we started boating on a clear lake with a great view on all directions, but halfway through, all we could see was clouds hovering over the lake and covering all d mountains…it was like a sudden and complete makeover. Next we went to attempt a thing from a dream adventure sport list made mentally…i.e. ROCK CLIMBING…scratched and bruised we climbed a 20ft rock, and what a feeling it felt when on the top. (not gonna give more details about it, u need to experience it to feel it…). Tired like anything, we went for again a heavy lunch, but me and my cousin still had the enthusiasm, courage and craziness left to do a 1.5km trek (the same steep one which leads us to our resort). Walking through the clouds among the huge trees (have visual proof :p) we reached the resort all sweaty and with another wonderful experience in our pocket. No more adventure for the day, just another amazing dinner and then good nights sleep.

The last leg of our trip i.e. The way back…but wait…the mental adventure sport list suddenly came to life again and we gave another one of it a shot i.e. RIVER CROSSING…if boating gave you a good work-out for legs and thighs, this one is a sure shot for fore-arms and biceps. What…an…experience…(again no details…you know why). So now we are on our way back, and luckily or unluckily, it started raining heavily know in the mountains… but rest of the journey was smooth, non-disturbing, until…we came near Delhi and saw which was not there for the past two days i.e. Traffic jams, queues of cars, bikes, buses, etc…and we finally reached back Faridabad…all in one piece…

Huh…

Great trip, amazing experience, well spent time…thnx to bhaiya for choosing the venue and the resort to stay in (it made all the difference)…thnx to richu for being with me for all d crazy stuff we did there…thnx to bhabhi for being there, hearing and bearing my jokes and letting us do what we wanted (hehe ;p) and all the thnx to Mahira…my cutie li'l pie niece…whenever we were doing nothing, she was always there to keep up busy…come what may…

P.S. – More such add-ventures on the way… now no turning back.

wahin ke wahin

sarkarein badli, shasan badle

hum wahin ke wahin

mausam badle, zamaane badle

hum wahin ke wahin

umar badhi aur kad bhi

kaathi bhi aur saathi bhi

aankh khuli to raah nahi

moondhe to khwaab mile

kab aaye the, kaise aaye the, kyu aaye the

kab aaye the, kaise aaye the, kyu aaye the

sochein to yaad nahi, na sochein to……par aisa mumkin nahi

na dil mile na dildaar mile, par hazaaron khaane ke bill mile

bhar diye……phir kayi baar mile

naam tha bahot, kaam tha bahot

par is duniya se anjaan tha bahot

sehme, ghabraye, ghar se bahar nikal gaye

jab pahuche, jaise pahuche, kuch naye jazbaat nazar aaye

ghar se duur to the hi, manzil se bhi the

doston ko hathyaar banaya, auzaar bhi aur sahara bhi

bahot aaye, bahot gaye

par hum wahin ke wahin

ghar ki yaad satati thi kabhi, par jaa kar yeh jagah yaad aati thi kabhi

kuch alag sa tha nasha yahan, na chahte hue bhi iski lat lagi

ajab sa tha jaadu iss mausam mein

dost naa bhi sahi yahan, phir bhi kuch to baat lagi

phir laga ladh kar koi fayda nahi

shayad main hi galat hu,

ek mauka deke to dekhein

phir sarkarein badli, phir shasan badle

phir mausam badle, phir zamaane badle

aur hum kahin se kahin

soch badli, nazariya badla, vichaar badle

par ab bhi hathyaar nahi, auzaar nahi, mere yaar nahi

doston ki fauj nahi ek choti si toli thi

jisme kuch naye bharti hue par puraane shaheed nahi

kitna kuch jhela, kitna saha

kitna kuch suna, kitna kaha

samay badla, manzar badla

par iss char deewari ke bahar

aaj bhi agar kahein ke hum

wahin ke wahin

to hum shayad galat nahi

par aisa kehna sahi bhi nahi

ke hum wahin ke wahin