Somewhere at the bottom of the list of National Award winners, I came across the name of Sharad Goyekar.
Somewhere at the bottom of the list of National Award winners, I came across the name of Sharad Goyekar.
The 11-year-old won the best child actor award for his portrayal of a village boy in Tingya, an acclaimed Marathi film dealing with farmer suicides in Maharashtra.
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But like the film that lost out to Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Par as India's official entry to the Oscars, Sharad's award too has gone unnoticed. It's because of our step-motherly treatment to regional cinema and the fact that Sharad does not have the backing of a Danny Boyle to scream about his impoverished background.
Sharad's parents do not have a permanent roof on their head and are residing in a temporary tent in Rajuri village in Pune. His mother, in fact, does not know where will she keep the awards her son has won. Her actor son, one among six siblings, has been adopted by a couple who is educating him in an English medium school, but still yearns for a place called home. Instead on beaming in glory at winning the National Award, he breaks down at the mention of his parents and their condition.
Others aren't so unlucky. Slumdog Millionaire child stars Azharuddin Ismail and Rubina Ali, who lived in the slums of Bandra, got a flat from the state government, thanks to the media spotlight on them courtesy Boyle and his Oscar-winning film. The foreigner, through his international film, ensured there was constant buzz about his child stars. We, as a nation, too fell prey because of our obsession with the white skin. Today, the children not only have a secure future, but have also signed some Hollywood projects.
Mangesh Hadawale, director of Tingya, probably lacks the finesse, oratory and finance to do the same for his protagonist. In fact, he has no qualms admitting that he has a difficulty communicating in English and prefers his mother tongue, Marathi. The director even struggled to put the synopsis of his film in English that was rejected by 42 producers before seeing the light of day.
He isn't as articulate as Boyle and has not drawn any attention to the plight of his child actor like the firang has, but he has let his work do the talking. And with the acknowledgement to his film in the form of a National Award to his young actor, he may just have paved the way for Sharad's bright future. Sharad, after all, isn't different from Azhar and Rubina. That's what I feel.
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