Hawaa Hawaai : Of Hopes, Dreams and all the goodness in this extremely bad world
Cast:Partho Gupte, Saqib Saleem, Pragya Yadav, Makarand Deshpande, Devraya Gole, Neha Joshi, Rekha Kamat
Director: Amole Gupte
Writer: Amole Gupte
Amol Gupte who started his film career from Amir Khan Production’s “Taare Zamin Par” and then Directed “Stanley ka Dabba”, has come up with his new offering “Hawaa Hawaai”. This Writer-Director-Producer has unique knack of dealing with child actors and presenting the world of children with great sensitivity and compassion.
Amol Gupte has written the story-screenplay-dialogues for this movie. Story is a often told tale of a poor boy triumphing it in the sports world with the help of a passionate teacher. What makes it different is the screenplay which proves that movies are Director’s medium. Screenplay is focused and grippy. Though it is not edge of the city, it keeps you glued to the narration.
Story is of Arjun Harishchandra Waghmare (master Partho Gupte) from a lower middle class household from a small village in Yavatmal District. His family is happy and he gets very good values and manners from his father Harishchandra Waghmare (Makarand Deshpande) who is a hardworking good farmer with devotion to Marathi Saint’s teachings. Only people who know the background of “Tulashi-maal” wearing devotees of Marathi Saints known as “Warkari” tribe will understand the happiness of the not very rich but happy farmer family. These values make Arjun a hardworking and self respecting kid.
Due to some unfortunate incidence (which is revealed in the climax), Arjun’s family has to face loss of his father and migrate to Mumbai for livelihood. Arjun joins a tea vendor at Bandra Kurla Complex as a tea supplying boy.
At his workplace which is near a car parking lot, every evening rich kids gather flaunting their imported skates to practice for skating competitions on the empty parking space, under the able guidance of their coach Aniket ‘Lucky’ Bhargava (Saqib Saleem).
Arjun is fascinated by this magical sport which gives feeling which is close to flying. He develops a desire to learn skating and be a champion. When his friends Gochi (master Ashfaque Bismillah Khan), Bindaas Murugan (master Thirupathi N. Kushnapelli), Bhura (master Salman Chhote Khan) and Abdul (master Maaman Memon) know about is wish, they get together to make it happen. From their efforts and with the help of the Garage owner, Usmaan Chacha (Razzak Khan), they create their own indigenous Skate akin to the imported ones and name it “Hawaa Hawaai”.
Can this hawaa hawaai help Arjun achieve his dream? How does Aniket get involved in the dream of this poor boy? Can he help him make a champion? You can get answers to all these question in very entertaining, hart warming manner in this movie.
Amol Gupte excels in the Directorial seat and handles the subject very maturely. It’s incredible how he mixes the stark and dark reality with the innocence and happy faces of the kids. We just can not help wonder the zest for life in the worst possible situation by the kids who are stars of the movie.
Amol’s narrative style is visual and lets the story unfold scene by scene without explicitly explaining anything. He infuses a strong comment on “Farmer suicide” and ill effects of Genetically Modified seeds in a very subtle manner which, I am afraid, can be missed by not so keen audience.
Amol’s world is simple and good. Here the reality created by system is dark but the people enduring it are happy, compassionate and righteous in possible ways. While you have smile on your face due to the sparkles in the eyes of these poor kids, your heart burns watching the disparities and socio-economical injustice. Still Amol manages to avoid melodrama and over-preachiness and sticks to simple and entertaining story telling which gives us a pleasant experience with an understanding to be more compassionate.
The star performer is of course Gupte’s son Partho who plays the well raised kid Arjun who faces every obstacle with smile and sincerity. He is cute and a very good actor. He lends the required earnestness and incense to his character. He makes him come alive on the celluloid. He is ably supported by Gochi (Ashfaque Khan), Bhura (Salman Khan), Abdul (Maaman Menon) and Murugan (Tirupati Krishnapelli). However, Ashfaque Khan steals the show which is author backed role.
Another impressive and honest performance is by Saqib Saleem who plays Aniket. Anuj Sachdeva who plays his brother is good too. But the actress who plays his girlfriend is unimpressive. Razzak Khan gets a good role to play to which he gives justice. Makarand Deshpande and Neha Joshi as Arjun’s parents does good job. Divya Jagdale (as the doctor) marks her presence.
Editor Deepa Bhatia has done a good job keeping the movie to just 120 mins. Background score by Hitesh Sonik is impressive so is the sound design. Cinematography by Amol Gole and Vikas Sivaraman is outstanding. Production design by Amit Ray and Subrata Chakraborty is good.
Overall, it is an important movie which needs to be seen because of its honest portrayal of reality sans melodrama. I request every parents to watch this movie with full family so that their kids know the real life problems and still get a message to fight each of them with a smile on their face.
Recommendation: It is a must watch film. It’s clean, entertaining and heart warming film which must be seen. Do watch it.
