THE MOVING PICTURE BOY ARCHIVE

STANLEY KA DABBA

Title: Stanley Ka Dabba
English translation: Stanley's Lunchbox; dabba is Hindi for 'box' and is commonly used to refer to a tiffin box; but in most of India, a child's lunchbox is referred to fondly as a 'tiffin box', hence a child's dabba will be his lunchbox.
Year of release: 2011
Director: Amole Gupta, who was also the screenwriter for the 2007 film Taare Zameen Par / Like Stars on Earth. In Stanley Ka Dabba, Gupta also plays the part of the Hindi teacher forever trying to steal the kids' food.
Country of Production: India
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Bollywood
Length: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Language: Hindi and English
Availability: A DVD is available with English subtitles

Below: Principal boy actors (l-r), Partho A. Gupta (director Amole Gupta's son) as Stanley Fernandes, Numaan Sheikh as Aman Mehra, Abhishek Reddy as Abhishek, Walter D'Souza as Walter, Sai Sharan Shetty as Sai

Synopsis
In contrast to the other pupils attending the Holy Family High School (an actual school where the director Amole Gupta was himself a pupil in the 1970s), Stanley never seems to have a dabba, or lunchbox, on him, and seems instead to just drink water. As the film unfolds we begin to realise that his home circumstances are not at all like those of his fellow pupils, in this charming shoestring-budget film, which highlights the issue of child labour. The film also includes five songs.

Amole Gupta created this film by setting up a cinema workshop during the school holiday, which the pupils were invited to attend; continued participation was therefore entirely voluntary. Incidentally, Stanley's desk partner at the beginning of the film is Walter, but part way into the film, Stanley's desk partner changes to Aman Mehra. This, which is not explained in the narrative, was actually because the boy playing Walter had decided at this point in the filmmaking not to participate further in the workshops, and so the character had to be substituted. Amole Gupta wrote the story of the film, but none of the actors, whether child or adult, were given scripts, but simply a general sense of the scene, so that all the dialogue was improvised.

In the wake of the film, a petition was set up against child labour in India, and some cinema industry figures were invited by the star of Stanley ka dabba himself to sign the petition, in return for which they received a badge proclaiming that they were 'Stanley's Buddy'. The meeting of the boy with the celebrities naturally prompted much boy-hugging (below).

Screenshots