Stanley ka Dabba (2011)
On surface it is a really sweet film about a boy who is very bright academically and is generally a sweet natured child. But the film ends up shocking and choking you when the final reveal happens. The dark reality of life of millions of children is quite saddening.
He tells delightful stories about his stories and is loved by almost all his teachers except one, a mean and rude teacher who is always after the lunch boxes of the students. Stanley never brings tiffin to school and ends up drinking water from the tap. His classmates see this and eventually share lunch with him hiding from the teacher who is always ready to eat their lunches. Bit after a few days, they are caught, and the teacher badly scolds him for not bringing tiffin to school and asks him to not come to school without a tiffin.
And from the next day, the boy is absent from the school. When he doesn't turn up to school for many days students starts blaming the rude teacher for his humiliation. Even the teacher feels guilty of his behaviour and leaves the school. The boy does come but for the annual day event where he is performing. We all feel that this is a sweet ending to the story where the teacher realised his mistake and the boy will continue to attend school.
But then we get a rude shock. After the event all parents take their children while the boys keep waiting. Eventually the principal of the school drops him home (he is perhaps the only one in the school to know the reality of his life). As soon as he enters his place his uncle slaps him for bunking work. And we realize why he doesn't brings lunch to school. He is a child labourer working for his ruthless uncle and is subjected to regular violence which explains the bruises on his face. But he has a friendly acquaintance who work in the same eatery and they share a tiny space together to sleep. When the boy tells him about the tiffin issue he finds a solution. He prepares a nice tiffin for him from the leftover food from the eatery.
The boy comes with a huge tiffin and shares it with his friends and even teachers telling them stories about how his mother cooked these meals. The truth was that he was an orphan and his uncle took him under from a very young age and made his life hell. The film ends with a caution against child labour and you will end up with tears in your eyes in those last few minutes.
No wonder the film won National award for Partho Gupte for best child artist who is also the son of Amol Gupte (the father of Partho, director of the film and he also played the khadoos teacher. Amol Gupte also wrote Taare Zameen par, and was the original director of the film before Aamir took over).