A lunchbox full of delicious delights

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Sit back and think of that school day when your mother packed in a special surprise treat in your tiffin box. Now, think of that rather long and hot day at school when you forgot to bring your dabba. Stanley ka Dabba packs in both, that joy and that sadness, in a story that is deeply moving and yet delightful.

We are concerned with class 4F of Holy Family High School, Andheri. Stanley (Partho) stands out from the others in his class. The corners of his collar are frayed and his face is mostly bruised. He is the first to arrive in school and his routine is set -- he gets to his desk and finishes his homework before taking a nap. By the time the other boys and teachers trot in, he is rested and ready.
Stanley is a friendly sort and the class’ dastango. He tells fascinating tales about his supermom and his life that is full of action and drama. But he never carries a water bottle or a tiffin-box to school. When his friends ask, he says that he has money to buy goodies from the canteen. He doesn’t. He walks past the canteen every day and drinks water to kill his hunger. Lots of it.
When his friends figure that he has been lying and going hungry during lunch-break, they happily offer their tiffin boxes to him. He returns the favour by entertaining them with his amazing stories.
Stanley really likes his class teacher, Rosy Ma’am (Divya Dutta). She is cute, calls her students “my babies”, and rewards good home-word with sweets. But there are other less pleasant teachers, most notably Babubhai Verma (Amole Gupte), the Hindi teacher.
Verma is bearded and bespectacled. He is always sweating, salivating and hungry. He often slips out of his class to steal food from other teachers’ tiffin boxes. He never brings his dabba and during the lunch-break, in the teachers’ room, he sings till he is offered food.
The school is way behind completing the year’s curriculum thanks to the swine flu epidemic, so the school principal decides to add three extra classes every day after Christmas. This means two breaks, two dabbas.
In class 4F there is Stanley’s friend Aman whose mother sends in the most delicious ghar ka khana -- aloo paranthas, channa-chawal... Aman often shares his food with Stanley. Verma too has tasted Aman’s lunch and craves it. After Christmas, Aman’s mother starts sending a four-tier steel tiffin-box. Verma spots it, is riveted and wheedles his way into Aman’s lunch gang. But in the gang is Stanley, the boy who never brings a dabba. Stanley has never said or done anything to annoy Verma, yet his presence riles Verma. Verma sees his pathetic, sad, dabba-less reflection in Stanley and wants to erase it. So he insults and scolds him. Stanley leaves the lunch group and returns to drinking water, lots of it, every day.
Verma greedily takes up Stanley's place in the lunch gang and this arrangement carries on for a few days. But Stanley’s friends don’t like Verma and miss Stanley, so they plot – they decide to ditch “Khadoos”, grab Stanley and rush to their secret eating place when the lunch bell rings.
Verma is beside himself. He looks for them everywhere, but they keep fooling him. Finally one day he finds them, feels humiliated and takes out his anger on Stanley. He calls Stanley manhoos and tells him not to come to school till he gets his own dabba. Stanley leaves.
What happens next is both heart-warming and heart-wrenching, and while the film stays with Stanley and we learn his story, you cannot stop thinking of Verma and feeling immense sorrow for the teacher who never had his own dabba.
I began crying in the hall and could not stop till at least an hour after the film’s credits had rolled. There is a message at the end of Stanley ka Dabba that comes with facts and figures, but it’s redundant in a film that has managed to move and shame you without uttering the words “child labour”.
Director Amole Gupte, who shot some bits of Taare Zameen Par, apparently wasn’t planning on making Stanley ka Dabba. He was just conducting weekend cinema and theatre workshop for kids in his alma mater and during the course of rehearsals started shooting some scenes. Lots of them made the final cut.
Partho, who plays Stanley, is Amole Gupte’s son. And if Mr Gupte will allow, I would like to hug this boy, and his friends Aman, Abhishekh and the other grinning toothless wonders of class 4F. Seasoned actors could learn a thing or two if they spent some time with Stanley and his dabba gang.
Stanley ka Dabba has lots of yummy food shots – frying, boiling, tarka – and it packs in a few lessons for teachers who try to “correct” lefties and discourage creativity. Some are subtle, others not so much. But it doesn’t matter. The film’s story and performances are so powerful and its emotional connect so strong that the next time you see a child without a dabba, you’ll weep and think of Stanley. And then of Khadoos.