Stanley Ka Dabba - how do you stack up?

 

Stanley Ka Dabba

Hindi, 2011

Genre: Family

Where to watch: Einthusan

Director: Amole Gupte

Stars: Partho Gupte, Amole Gupta, Divya Dutta, Divya Jagdale, Vidyut Jammwal

Mohan's Measure ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hidden away among the countless number of Bollywood movies, lies this beautiful little children's story that is a delight to any age.

The director's own son Partho plays Stanley, and interestingly Mr. Gupte himself takes on the role of his nemesis, the Hindi teacher with a voracious appetite.  The movie spins a very simple but heartwarming story of how this teacher literally steals from his students' tiffin carriers to feed himself, and finds room to trying stuff from other's teachers lunches too.  His dissatisfaction with Stanley is that he doesn't ever bring his own tiffin dabba to school.  The story of what happens and how Stanley proves himself is the plot of this superbly presented film, which uses actual students from Catholic schools to play the roles  which, for obvious reasons, come naturally to them

Those of you raised in our Motherland will probably find yourself delighting in memories when  watching the misadventures of the young Stanley and his gang of buddies as they deal with the day to day ins and outs of  life, laughter and mischief found in school.   It is something I hope you will share with your own kids, if only for them  to understand that like me, they missed out.