Coming of Age, Again

Fifteen years on, Udaan still defines dissent, boyhood, and cinematic freedom

- By RAHUL DESAI

On a rainy night in 2010, I started walking after the late screening of a film whose title translated to "flight". Nobody had heard of Udaan yet: a first-time director, two male television stars, a teen acting debut, an Anurag Kashyap co-writing credit. Like a cinephile high on discovery, I wanted to share my joy. I wanted to yell out my appreciation from Mumbai's tarpaulin-covered rooftops. But I settled for jogging home, the cinema of my act rivalled only by the cinema of its young protagonist breaking free. I couldn't wait to revisit this movie — to savour and dissect it, to make it my coming-of-age bible.

I never got around to doing that. Years passed. One tends to preserve the first impression of a film by refusing to distort its memory. Over time, I realised that it was something else. The film cut so deep that I couldn't imagine having its courage. I had almost nothing in common with Udaan: no abusive dad, no dead mom, no half-brother I didn't know of, no boarding-school past. Even the aspiration to write in Mumbai was belated in my case. There was nothing to resonate with. But that's what great films do. They don't just depict a lived-in and personal experience, they allow every new person to live through its experience. For those who related, Udaan was a flashback. For those who didn't, Udaan became life itself.