C/O Footpath (2006, Kannada movie)
What grabs your attention immediately about this movie is that it is written, directed and acted by a 10 year old child. And not just any child, a child that is intelligent and sensitive way beyond his years. He doesn’t communicate anything through this movie that we, as adults, aren’t aware of…it’s the WAY he says it that makes his message pierce straight into our hearts, and not just linger in our brains.
DIRECTOR/WRITER- Master Kishen.
CAST- Master Kishen, Tara, Saurabh Shukla, Jackie Shroff.
PLOT-
In the city that is known as the “Silicon Valley of India” (Bangalore), there exists an alternate reality of young children being sold everyday by their parents to beggars, for a measly sum of 50 rupees. They are drugged so they can appear ill, and then surface at traffic signals, in the arms of their “mothers”, serving as aids to earning money. One such child is the protagonist of this story. This child wanders away from his, “mother” and is adopted by an old lady living in a slum. Not having a name, he is christened, rather appropriately though unfortunately, as “Slum’mu”.
Slummu (Master Kishen) grows up to be a precociously bright 8 year old, leading a gang of rag pickers, being the sole bread winner of his household. One day while engaging in his daily routine of rag picking, he is challenged and humiliated by some privileged school going boys. Right then he makes up his mind to get an education and get himself on par with those boys.
To this end, he chases after school kids and pesters them to teach him the alphabet and give him hand me downs (books and school clothes), he pesters a slum lord (Saurabh Shukla) to finance his education, he runs after a school teacher and principal, until they are forced to admit him into their school…not quite as a pupil, but as someone who hangs around outside the classroom, listening to everything that goes on inside.
But this is not ALL that he wants…he also wants to be allowed to skip a few grades and be allowed to study in a few grades above his age! This is a privilege that is not yet awarded to children in the state of Karnataka. For this, with the help of a school teacher and a kindly NRI, he chases after the government- from the Minister of Education to the Chief Minister (Jackie Shroff) of Karnataka!
Does Slummu get what he’s worked so hard for? No surprises here- OF COURSE HE DOES!
MY TAKE-
Leave all your cynicism behind and watch this movie. I work with a couple of schools, catering to children from the slums of Bangalore, so I can attest to the authenticity of the characters and setting in the movie. Yes, the movie is in Kannada (it isn’t my mother tongue either!), and it does tend to overkill on the drama quotient and the loud background score…but the movie is so filled with sincerity, good intentions and innocence that it begs to be watched and appreciated.
The child actor/director Master Kishen IS indeed a prodigy. He is absolutely irresistible and charming as the young boy Slummu. However, it wasn’t the actor in Kishen that impressed me the most, but the supremely intelligent and visionary DIRECTOR in Kishen that stunned me. Portraying real, observable social phenomena such as begging and child labour, connecting it to the untiring pursuit of education by an underprivileged child, and then taking that quest for education even higher……absolutely phenomenal!
As adults, we are perhaps capable of and equipped to stare reality in the face. But we often lack the vision to take it a step further and do something about it. What makes this movie special is that it shows a child not only facing harsh reality, it shows him smiling in the face of that reality, and then stretching out his hands far above, reaching for the stars!