Entertainment Review: Nukkad Naatak

Simple, raw and sincere, the film Nukkad Naatak, comes to Netflix, in spite of a cast of unknowns and a new director. It does not fit into the regular repertoire of the streaming giant, but its success in its festival rounds and a limited release must have helped.

Tanmaya Shekhar’s debut feature has a burning indie spirit, which shines through the small budget and technical shortcomings. More importantly, it had a heart that beats for the poor, who suffer from lack of opportunity, more than shortage of money.

The fiery Molshri who runs a college street theatre group, wins the admiration of shy Shivang (played by real-life theater actors Molshri Singh and Shivang Rajpal), who is grappling with the secret of his sexuality.

They commit a theft to help a canteen worker mistreated by his employer and are expelled from college. In the hyper-competitive of Indian higher education system, this could end their future career prospects, not to mention the wrath of their parents hanging over their heads.

The kind principal (Danish Husain) offers them one tiny sliver of hope. They would be forgiven if they are able to enroll five children from a nearby slum into a local school.

The families of the kids who live in a squalid slum would rather that they earn a living than waste time over an education that is useless in their eyes.

​What starts as a desperate attempt to get back their precious seat in the engineering college, gradually evolves into an awakening of bitter social realities. As they navigate the bureaucratic indifference of the school system — the kids have no id proof, which is a hurdle–and the deep-seated mistrust of the slum community, they realize that their idealistic  activism is hollow,  without a complete overhaul of the attitudes that keep the underprivileged kids from rising to their potential. Like the bright-eyed girl (Nirmala Hajra), who wants to better her lot, but is prevented by her family’s struggle for survival.

The solution, they discover, lies in the form of street theatre, that has the power to push a message across, or at least, start a dialogue between the performer and the audience.

​The real locations and casting of mainly newbies are perhaps the film’s greatest strength.  Shekhar allows the audience to see the characters rather than their performances, which do not have that acting school polish.

A film is not as unlikely to bring about change as a street play is, but Nukkad Naatak floats on earnestness and hope. After all, they did make the film against all odds and delivered it to the audience. That’s no small achievement.