Aha!Yet another lucky choice.I had seen a few promos of 'Nil Battey Sannata',directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari at PVR,and was immediately hooked.Like many other previous films,I got the feeling that here was a movie that shouldn't be missed.I was right. Swara Bhaskar and Pankaj Tripathi rock the show in this profound tale of the power of dreams,education and the delicate mother-daughter relationship.There is a lot of innocence there,which we hardly see in real life.Also,the music blends with the storyline and beautifully adds to the emotions onscreen.From the first scene,we see a single mother urging her unwilling daughter to school,juggling jobs to make ends meet,ready to sacrifice anything,if only to make her child get that dream job and financial security that she failed to earn.She is initiated back to school by an understanding employer,whom she serves as a maid,to nudge Apeksha,her only daughter,in the right direction to write the Civil Services exam.In the process,characters evolve,wise anecdotes on life are offered,and ultimately,the purest form of love wins us over.I was holding back tears through the whole  I hour and 40 minutes,but the final "To God's most Wonderful Creation - Mother" made me break down.A perfect movie for family audiences;clear proof that winds of change are indeed afoot.I really wish that such unambitious projects are lapped up by a global audience,just like commercial cinema.It is happy news that critics have rated it at a whopping 8.9/10,though.


As an aside,I think parallels can be drawn between Chanda(Swara Bhaskar) in 'Nil Battey Sannata' and Ugwu in 'Half of a Yellow Sun'  regarding the humane treatment of the house-help.