Udaan.

‘Udaan’ brought back a lot of memories. Much of the movie was based in Jamshedpur-the industrial city. Jamshedpur, like Maithon, is just another industrial small town in Jharkhand(the latter is probably one-tenth the size of the former). But watching the movie with Debadrita made it even more special. The lanes and the by-lanes, the picturesque colonies with neat rows and columns of bungalows- some huge, others just about qualifying for the name, and white picket fences, white low-rise gates, and children riding their bicycles in those narrow lanes strewn with yellow flowers that have withered off from the gorgeous, resplendent yellow trees that line the bungalows- all these were uncannily reminiscent of Maithon. Of course, the fact that the two towns are separated by a meager 150 kms, adds to the obvious similarities between the circumstances and the psyche of the people the protagonist in the movie faces and the ones I have grown up with. [I strongly believe that as towns develop into cities, they turn into mirror-images of each other. Every huge city is a clone of the other, but every small town is distinct in its affection, its vulnerability, its dream-weave-lores, its colors and its very flavor].