Fandry

Story:

Fandry (2013) is a drama film in the Marathi language directed and written by Nagraj Manjule in his first attempt at filmmaking. In the story set in a Maharashtrian village, Jabya (Somnath Awghade), a young boy from a lower caste family who loves Shalu (Rajeshwari Kharat), a girl from an upper caste family. Jabya wants to break out of his social environment and tries to attract Shalu’s attention. Moreover, his family suffers from poverty and is forced to do humiliating jobs for other people in the village.

While Jabya’s desires develop, he starts feeling how humiliated and discriminated against his family is. Jabya’s obsession with catching a unique black sparrow, which is believed to make people fall in love, is a symbol of his struggle with obstacles around him. The culmination of the film is that Jabya’s family is forced to catch a wild pig for the villagers. It leads to public humiliation of Jabya before his schoolmates and Shalu. Finally, an angry outburst of Jabya is an expression of his dissatisfaction with the caste system that dehumanizes him. The film Fandry was greatly appreciated by critics, and Manjule received The Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director at the 61st National Film Awards.