It had been a long time since I had gone out for watching a movie with my Team. One fine day my MD Preetam asked us for organizing a movie event and surprisingly he himself suggested the movie entitled Fandry. The moment I heard the name I Googled about it and got to know that its a Marathi movie. Although I was not very much happy with watching a movie whose promo looked as if it has been shot in ancient times the only thing (obviously apart from MD’s suggestion) which made me give it a shot on day one was it had got nice responses.
On the Valentine’s day when Love was in the air my team was working tiringly on checking out for security threats in code base and monitoring monotonous Apache Logs same day Fandry was released and we reserved our seats for an evening show.(Yeah I had no date, no lady love was expecting me to buy her Roses to talk sweet nothings). I ended up with working 10 hours straight relaxing myself with couple of Tea cups and smokes before we reached Inox with only one question in mind what does Fandry mean?
When we made ourselves comfortable on the luxury class chairs couples were entering holding their arms around each other and it made me feel like, ‘guys seriously is it really worth watching this movie on Valentine’s day, go on for a long ride instead.’ No sooner the movie started it worked as a spell on me with the true rural language and locations used for picturization.
The movie revolves around a poor boy Jabya (Somnath Awghade) belonging to a cast which is considered as untouchable(Yes its heinous truth of wannabe superpower India in 21st century) in rural areas, desperately desiring to hunt a black Sparrow. His family consists of a down to earth, uneducated, society fearing father(Kishor Kadam), a typical mother(Chhaya Kadam) who has equal affection for all her kids but who had to ask her son for forfeiting his desire to buy jeans so that she could save some money to marry her younger daughter. A divorced sister and ofcourse another sister who is about to get married. The boy Jabya is blessed with two friends who look for his back in thick and thin. And obviously a lady love Shaalu(Rajeshwari Kharat).
Jabya has a crush on Shaalu and she knowingly or unknowingly acts as if she knows it and Jabya feels she is reciprocating the same. He has dreams and he wants to live them. He sells ice candies to buy a jeans and t-shirt to woo her. Also he is trying his best to hunt a black Sparrow which he wants to burn and use the ash to make Shaalu fall in love with her. He dislikes the job his family does of catching the stray pigs and tries to keep himself away from it. The best part about Jabya’s performance is the way he blushes. 🙂
Nana (Jabya’s father) pleads everyone and works on any job he gets so that he could earn bread and butter for his family. Nana carries a deep grief that one of his daughter has been divorced and he has to pay dowry to get her second daughter married. As he belongs to a lower cast he is asked to catch and kill stray pigs causing nuisance which he alone is incapable of doing because of his increasing age.
Every seen is mesmerizing, every character is beautiful and every single statement from the movie is a bitter truth. May it be Jabya’s hiding somewhere to avoid facing Shaalu when he or his family is doing odd chores, Naani(Jabya’s mother) visiting Jabya’s school to check if he is studying properly, Jabya’s father humbly requesting to alliance that he can not pay a great amount of dowry as he is a poor man, Jabya’s friend teasing him on the name of Shaalu or again Jabya’s father crying his heart loud in front of his son that he is poor and belongs to a lower cast and hence can not fight with society.
The movie depicts some really mind boggling truths from Indian society like rich-poor differences, upper and lower cast differences, how people treat poor and lower casts, grievous rituals, dowry problem and what not. When the movie is about to end Jabya nad his sister carry the hunted pig on their way home from school, they pass from the painted photos of Social Leaders Mahatma Phule, Savitribai Phule, Gadge Baba who heavily contributed in reforming the lower casts decades ago and Jabya never even got a glimpse of their reformation, as if he is asking did the reformation actually happened or its also just a myth. The movie ends with Jabya taking an aggressive stand against the wicked society and challenging them to test him.
There are three people who deserve a standing ovation Jabya(Somnath Awghade) with his innocent later determined stand towards love and life, Jabya’s father(Kishor Kadam) who acted as if he actually is living the character and Nagraj Manjule for writing & directing this movie.
When the movie ended we hardly spoke to each other, the only thing we talked about was the fact that some Jabya and his father was going through all this while we were watching the movie in an A/C theater and the world was celebrating Valentine’s eve.
PS: The movie has English subtitles so even if you don’t know Marathi you can watch Fandry. I am promoting and recommending this movies with a deep hope that when some Jabya might need help and you are in a position to help him you won’t have to think twice before doing the noble act. (Well you need to watch the movie to know what Fandry actually means too!! )
Movie – Fandry
IMDB – 8.9/10
Produced By – Nilesh Navlakha,Vivek Kajaria
Directed By – Nagraj Manjule
Star Cast : Somnath Awghade Rajeshwari Kharat ,Suraj Pawar,Kishor Kadam,Chhaya Kadam,Jyoti Subhash,Pravin Tarde,Suresh Vishwakarma,Vikas Pandurang Patil,Suhash Shirsat,Sohail Shaikh,Aishwarya Shinde,Sakshi Vyavhare,Bhushan Manjule,Sanjay Chaudhri,Prashant Kamble,Nagraj Manjule,Purnanand Wandhekar,Subhash Kamble ,Pradeep Awate
Story,Screenplay,Dilouge – Nagraj Manjule
Screenplay By – Nagraj Manjule
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Zakheera -E- Jazbaat 