I was completely jobless at night so I thought to go to my friend’s room and fetch some movies to watch. Hence I got an opportunity to watch this SPLENDID, IMPECABLE and EXQUISITELY directed movie, STANLEY KA DABBA. The movie starts with a peachy morning where Stanley is enjoying the morning as he goes to school. He comes very early to school and that too daily. He loves to present cock and bull stories and bluff his friends who are fond him. Moreover he takes a peculiar interest in the English class and writes an essay describing how his mother jumps into a moving train and a moving bus. The story takes a very tragic scene as it concludes with a question mark leaving on every viewers minds.

Stanley never had a Mother. He didn’t have a mother to cook his food, to dress him up, to make his project, to drop him to school, to watch the way he danced in the concert. Very beautifully the psychology of a child has been described by the director, Stanley used to day by day witness the parents, especially mothers, dropping their sons to school. He also used to see that how his classmates used to praise the food cooked by their mothers. Stanley used to observe these things. So, in order to prove that he too had a mother, he created an imaginary mother. He took inspiration from Mary and created his imaginary mother. He narrated the stories of how his mother asked him to fetch vegetables and how he had a quarrel with the rowdy elements living in the streets. Stanley is not an escapist. He just wanted to be like other children whose mother wakes up before their children and cooks lunch. He just wanted to show his mates that he too had a mother to look after him. To satisfy himself emotionally he had no other choice but to create his own comfort zone which was to create an imaginary mother that is looking after him. He was successful in bluffing the world throughout the movie but the last scene was the most touching when the viewers come face to face with ‘his’ reality, and the reality is that Stanley works under his brash uncle in an inn, his job is to serve food to people clean up the mess, wash plates and what not! In short he is a child-labourer. The theme of this movie was to show India that there are millions and millions of Stanleys that we will find everywhere. In each and every street and even in houses we will find them.

The feature that fascinates me is the child psychology which is projected in the movie. Stanley knew that he had no mother; the thing which propelled him to create his imaginary mother is that he also wanted the class should know he has a mother who is very loving and caring, makes his lunch, and dresses him up for school. There are many people in the world who create a virtual world or an imaginary world or characters to support themselves emotionally. The child, who never receives a love of his mother, tends to collect love and affection from different people in different ways. And in this case the kid created a Mother, though his food was prepared by his friend Akram, but what he explains to his teachers is that his mother cooked the food getting up early in the morning at 4 am.

The movie becomes very thought-provoking in the end that impels the viewers to think over such topics of child psyche and child labour. The movie too ends with a note that there are 12 million or even more Stanleys who are prisoners of the same fate and what is to come out of them? One thing is for sure, any sensitive person has to drop few tears in the end when he would actually empathise with this Character Stanley. The innocent of the fact that he has an imaginary mother and he is a prisoner of his own imagination, Stanley continues to his daily routine after saying goodnight to his late parents and praying for their souls to rest in peace.