Home 'Street' Home

Cut to the inners of a cargo company where the lone ray of sunlight filters in through the gaps in the asbestos roof to lighten up the darkest recesses. Roam around in an invisible garb and you will discover everyone with a smile on his or her face. These jolly folks seem to be very satisfied with life that they want no more, and all of them are very much indebted to this man who magically seems to have altered their life forever. Their acknowledgement and credit of their success and achievement revolve around this faceless personality to such an extent that the flow of biography begins from here. Each one of them take turns to explain his part of the story of their godfather, Ram Jaiswal who has been integral in building up a stature to which they belong to.

A story that carries all the strains of a ‘rags to riches’ theme is effortlessly portrayed by these young men who dream to be like Ram one day. A cascade of events in flashback follows to depict the life story of Ram and his valiant struggle efforts throughout; The story of a nondescript boy, who ran away from home because he was denied education. The boy who escaped the savages of a hardcore Mumbai, who resisted all the paths that could have led him to doing petty crimes and the underworld, went on to become an entrepreneur and employ individuals who had experienced how it feels growing up as street kids. Today, he is happily married with two kids and had adopted a girl from the streets. He in his capacity has tried to do something for this class of society that has often been looked by oppressive and scornful eyes.

But you just cannot escape the reality - the fate of various other street kids who do not grow up to be Ram Jaiswal – with reality shots and the society’s feigned ignorance to their plight, shots of someone harshly warding of an urchin who begs since he has not eaten for days, a street child who is into doing drugs just to escape the harsh realities of life, another who is exposed to the dangers of STDs and of course out Page 3 celebrities appealing ‘plastically’ to the public to make their contribution