If a Hindi film looks and sounds seamlessly real, tells the story of a young boy’s coming of age without over-the-top sentimentalising, nonchalantly bypasses most of the endless stocks that crowd usual Bollywood fare and extricates almost flawless performance from its lead actors, it’s a cause for celebration. In those terms then Vikramaditya Motwane’s debut feature Udaan is an event and not least for being selected under the Un Certain Regard (A Certain Look) category at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Udaan is about Rohan (Barmecha), an introverted, artistic boy in his late teens who nevertheless harbours a distinct taste for disorder and youthful recklessness. But even under the most trying times, he does not lose to ponder over small things that shape into neat little poems that he composes.

But outside it, the world is an unforgiving one. Rohan is at the receiving end of the wrath of his principal at a prestigious boarding school in Simla when, along with his three friends, he is caught watching an x-rated film at a rundown cinema after having sneaked out of his hostel. He is sacked and sent packing to his dad in small-town Jamshedpur. His friends too lose their right to board the school any longer and leave for Mumbai, which is the obvious ‘other’ of Jamshedpur.

But Rohan finds himself stuck under the bare lights of his emaciated house which is manned by a tough, pernicious, robotic father, a man singularly deficient of social company and soft emotions and whose ways have struck deep roots under the edges of the small town middle-class neighbourhood that dominates the film. Bhairon Singh (Roy, in his best role till date) runs a small foundry, one of the many that dot the steel city with as much self-deluding authority as he runs his small family. His family is made of Singh, Rohan and a small boy of six, Arjun (Boradia), the produce of his father’s second marriage, an event that Rohan was unaware of during his eight-year stint at the boarding school.

The film maps with great compassion Rohan’s life, his lonely hours, his excursions into the fake neons of small-town nightlife, Singh’s frustrations of being a single father to two unequal boys, the little steps of endearment that Arjun and Rohan slowly and painfully take towards each other and their final march towards liberation together.

Barmecha will no doubt receive accolades for his act, but the films in many parts belong to the brilliant Boradia. He is a treat.

The marker of a good film is what of it you retain once you are outside the theatre. Anurag Kashyap, the films co-writer and co-producer will be happy to know that there is a lot to take back from this nifty little coming of age gem, that ‘(t)his kind of cinema’, a genre rightly or wrongly, he and some of his colleagues in the industry are consciously trying to promote do have a lot of potential. If Hindi cinema (not Indian cinema) is at all looking for a serious world audience, it better does with films like Udaan and not with the Slumdog variety.

Review of Udaan | Rating: Very Good

Director: Vikramaditya Motwane Cast: Rajat Barmecha, Ronit Roy, Ram Kapoor, Aayan Boradia|