The Baalak Cart: Looking at children's films in India

Perhaps one of the finest children’s film from India is Dekh Indian Circus. An absolutely delightful, slice-of- life tale about an impoverished family in the deserts of Rajasthan that craves for a visit to the circus. While Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Tannistha Chattterjee are brilliant as the parents it is their children played by Virendra Singh Rathod and Suhani Oza who take centrestage. With no acting experience behind them the two kids deliver utterly natural performance under the direction of Mangesh Hadawale.[caption id="attachment_11624011" align="alignnone" width="640"] Dekh Indian Circus[/caption]Dekh Indian Circus is a rarity. Another children’s film with instant-recall is Nitesh Tiwari’s Bhoothnath Returns. It not only featured a very talented child actor Parth Bhalarao at the helm, the child was acknowledged as the hero of the show by none other than his formidable co-star Amitabh Bachchan himself! Nitesh Tiwari, who earlier worked with a bevy of child actors in Chillar Party, feels connecting with children without patronizing them is of utmost importance.   Nitesh has gone through the heartbreaking process of asking child actors to leave while shooting a number of times while he was shooting his ads. Children who sparkled when I met them, froze in front of the camera. It was very painful to replace them.[caption id="attachment_11624021" align="alignnone" width="640"] Bhootnath Returns[/caption]Amole Gupte has constantly been working with children in real and reel life. His son Partho won the richly-deserved National award for his incredibly sensitive performance in Stanley Ka Dabba, the film that saw the profound link between human bonding and food before The Lunchbox. Stanley Ka Dabba is the sort of rare and precious look at the world of a child as seen aeons ago in Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar or his short-film Pikoo's Diary. Closer in time, there was Taare Zameen Par with which Amole Gupte was profoundly associated.[caption id="attachment_11624081" align="alignnone" width="640"] Stanley Ka Dabba[/caption]Stanley Ka Dabba goes far deeper into the mind of a male child. This time, the endeavour is not to milk the child's deficiencies for tears. In Stanley… Gupte looks for and finds an enormously engaging and humane story in the normal tenor of a 10-year old boy's school life. Stanley and his friends, as played by Partho and a group of absolutely unaffected children, come across as utterly normal creatures of classroom caprice. If as we have been told, these young boys are trained to face the camera, then the training doesn't show at all. The skill that has gone into the performances is so subtle and the artifice in their performances so minimal, the boys come across as children of a lesser fraud.Going back in time, we notice the painful paucity of films about children in Indian cinema. In  Prakash Arora’s Boot Polish (1958), the little wonders  Baby Naaz and Rattan Kumar proved themselves natural-born scenestealers in this achingly gentle look at the life of street children. This one is a precursor Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay.[caption id="attachment_11624141" align="alignnone" width="640"] Boot Polish[/caption]Shekhar Kapoor’s 10-hankie weepie Masoom(1983)  about a little illegitimate boy’s attempt to find a home in his father’s family had Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi towering over the cast. But it was the heartbreakingly vulnerable Jugal Hansraj we carried home with us.Mani Ratnam’s Tamil tear-jerker Anjali in 1990 about a mentally challenged girl had Baby Shamli stealing the show from veterans Revathy and Raghuvaran. In Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black (2005), Ayesha Kapoor as an untamable blind and deaf girl made as strong an impact as Rani Mukherjee who played the character when she grew up. In Taare Zameen Par (2007)  Darsheel Safary as the dyslexic kid became the youngest ever actor to be nominated for best actor awards in India.Perhaps the  best children’s  film Without the least display of  pity or preachiness is I Am Kalaam.Director Nila Madab Panda creates a world of infinite hope and minuscule joys for his precocious unlettered but smart protagonist Chotu. The wispy but firm-handed narration weaves through Chotu’s relationships with various  characters in his life…his uncle the dhaba owner Bhatti(played with endearing warmth by Gulshan Grover) , the jealous Bachchan-crazy recruit at the dhaba Laptan(Pitobash,natural in his unsophisticated meanness), the free-spirited French tourist Lucy(Beatrice ordeix), and above all, Chotu’s rapport with the Rajasthani royalty Ranvijay Singh(Husaan Saad) a kind lonely aristocrat boy who eagerly befriends Chotu to share his luxurious but solitary life with.The shared moments between Chotu and his motley crew of  compelling characters are tender and genuine.The  characters are never slotted or allowed to become stereotypical. They convey a kind of free-flowing casualness that makes them real and yet dramatic in a subtle undefinable way. The film’s social message of education-for-all is underlined but never italicized. It’s left  to the boy protagonist Harsh Mayar to bring out the theme’s inherent message without making the plot heavy or didactic. Mayar with his unassuming swagger and artless smile brings to the film a rare intelligence and humour. National award, did they say? The boy deserved much more.Tragically   many of the  above wunderkinds  have  grown up to  a zero  career. Ayesha  Kapoor  of  Black and  Darsheel Safari  of  Taare Zameen  Par  are  still waiting  for their big break as adult actors,  Ayesha was  supposed to play the  lead opposite  Sushant Singh  Rajput in Shekhar Kapoor’s aborted  Paani. Harsh Mayer is struggling for survival. And  what  happened to Master Bobby  in Shakti Samanta’s  Amar  Prem who  shared  the lead  with Rajesh  Khanna as both  vied for Sharmila Tagore’s  attention?There is a real dearth of quality content in India that provides wholesome entertainment to children.Unfortunately the economics gets in the way of everything, and therefore art suffers. It’s no different in films. Because of that, people don’t want to take a chance and explore this genre. Moreover the ‘General Entertainment’ has further marginalized films specifically meant for children. However, it is possible to make low or medium budget films that are strong in content and form, and are neither preachy and boring, nor mindless and violent. Today they are growing up on a completely different diet and we cannot stop that. But we can surely provide an alternative, for them to choose from. There are many countries like Netherland, Germany, China etc that are way ahead of us in making quality children’s films.When I see someone like Salman Khan pitching in for a children’s film like Chillar Party or Ranbir Kapoor in  Rocket Gang  my heart swells with pride. More power to the Aamirs and Salmans of showbiz. They can make a difference to how children’s film’s are perceived.Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.