FRIENDS FOREVER ???

Movie Review: Fandry

There is a very nice quote by Dr. Ambedkar. “Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.” Fandry shows you the reality of this quote which is still there in 21^st century. Though Constitution of India has given right to each and everyone to live but still the caste system has not given the right to the lower-castes to rise. They are still forced to chase the pigs.

‘Jabya’(Somnath Avaghade), a 13 to 14 years old boy from an untouchable caste ‘Kaikadi’, is staying with his family in the outskirts of the village. His father ‘Kachrya’ (Kishor Kadam) aka Kachru (means ‘garbage’) does any work given to him by the villager, from swiping the village, providing tea, to removing pigs from gutter and from village. ‘Jabya’ is a dreamer who always dreams about his one sided love ‘Shalu’ (Rajeshwari Kharat), talks about his love to his best friend ‘Pirya’ (Suraj), spends his time after a black sparrow what he believes to be the only way of getting his love Shalu. All his attempts of impressing Shalu, from getting a Jeans pant, looking good, dancing to impress her, playing ‘Halgi’ and others, fail because of him being untouchable, poor, and his dark, dirty looks. His father and his entire family is busy in getting money by doing any work in order to get his sister marry, and Jabya is busy dreaming various ways of impressing Shalu. What happens? Does Jabya get his love Shalu? Does he become successful in impressing her by wearing Jeans?

Though Jabya’s attempts of impressing Shalu are at the circumference of the plot, the centre is caste based discrimination in Indian villages. His father is praised by the villagers for doing any dirty work, and for listening to what they say. The plot has become a beautiful fabric with the colourful threads of Jabya’s conversation with his Pirya, Pirya’s support to Jabya in the times of troubles, his love for Shalu, his father’s pitiful condition due to poverty, the dowry system and the dark thread of caste system.

The cinematography is more than what is expected from a Marathi movie. Many a times, the camera descends from the Gulmohar tree, touches its flowers, and captures the ice-candy selling Jabya and Pirya. The colorless, pale countryside in which Jabya follows the black sparrow resembles the colourful life of Jabya. The camera has successfully captures the poverty through the colorless faces of Jabya, his father and his family. Dialogues are not larger than life but they give life to the characters and to each and every frame. Background music, whenever Jabya looks at Shalu and thinks of her, touches your heart and makes you think that you are in love. The director Nagraj Manjule has crafted every scene and frames with such brilliance that it makes you feel that you are the characters in the movie. One can guess that it wasn’t easy for him to weave the plots and to present it meaningfully on the screen.

Kishor Kadam as Kachrya steals the show. He looks like the one feeling the agony of poverty, living the disrespect of other higher caste villagers, and trying his hard to survive in the village. Somnath Avaghade as Jabya is not an actor because his each and every part of body speaks. His dark complexion shows his life under the dark, his smile shows his innocence and his true love for Shalu, his loud cry shows his helplessness, his body language when he walks after Shalu shows his hidden but true love. His cracking voice displays his honest love, his hidden frustration, and his agony. Suraj as Pirya is remarkable. His true friendship feels equivalent to Jai and Veeru’s friendship, and it goes far beyond that. Rajeshwari Kharat has no dialogues but her presence is enough to show the innocence in teenage love.

There are many unforgettable scenes:

1. When Jabya is dancing to impress Shalu in the village fair in the crowd and his father gives him lantern to hold, he cries, and others make his fun.
2. When Jabya’s cycle gets crashed under truck, he cries, and cries, and cries, and Pirya consoles him. Truly awesome.
3. When Jabya refuses to take the pig out of the gutter, it shows his rebellion against caste system.
4. All the scenes when he hides from Shalu
5. The scene where his entire family tries to catch wild pigs in front of his school. Suddenly, school’s day starts with National Anthem. Everybody, including Jabya, his father, and his family is standing still respecting the National Anthem, except the pig. This shows that though poor and untouchables have respected this country, the caste system in this country has always disrespected them.
6. The scene where people in the village (higher class people) laughs at Jabya’s family when it tries to catch the pigs. It shows that sophisticated and educated people want this caste system to be eradicated from the society, but they want themselves to come in the field and remove it. On the other hand, they would force the lower-caste people to eradicate caste system and would also laugh at them. Shame on such sophisticated, educated people.
7. The scene when the pig is caught, tighten and is taken from in front of the paintings of Dr. Ambedkar, Mahatma Phule, Savitribai Phule and Shahu Maharaj. It simply shows that though these great people have done great work of eradicating inequality, still people here still living in 17^th century.
8. And the last and the most effective scene, when frustrated Jabya throws stones at the upper caste villagers for making his fun. Those stones are thrown on all those who believe in caste system, the stones are thrown on all those audience who laughed at Jabya’s pity, who have still some caste based prejudices in their mind.

The movie takes you on a high point and leaves you from there to fall in the misery of caste based India. You are literally injured as you are hit by Jabya’s tragedy, you are helplessly fallen down because you can’t move as you are struck in the filth of caste system. Really ‘Fandry’ is a poetic experience of poisonous bread named 'caste'.