The premise of Vaazhai is simple – it is the coming-of-age story of a young boy on the verge of puberty (a subtle reference implied as an infactuation towards his teacher) who works during his school holidays carrying banana stalks, a dreaded task for which he is payed a single rupee. The important thing of taking note here is the era which isn’t the 50s or 60s, but the late 90s, an era where India had already undergone an economic transformation. And this is where the subtle politics in the writing creeps in while still ensuring that the whole drama unfolds through the gaze of a young mind. Lately, I have always enjoyed a perspective that unfolds through the lens of a young mind (the Taiwanese film Old Fox was another pivotal example), given how binary emotions and situations are for them. It is often the protagonists here that act as sponges, absorbing the situations around them while slowly finding their voices around them. And with Vaazhai, it is exactly that.

It is very early on that you are acquainted with the politics of the land. There is a news of a demise that spreads like wild fire, only to reach the young protagonist and his friend. But contrary to the expectations of mourning, the two rejoice given that the supposed day of grieving ensures that they don’t have to lug banana bunches, a task that is dreaded by them. Almost immediately, there is a sequence involving a character with the outline of a socialist or a communist, who demands the salary of the workers to be increased by a single rupee (remember they are earning just Rs 1 previously). This is met with a little resistance before giving in to the demands which also doubles up as a commentary wherein the viewers are offered moments of poignancy with regard to the meagre salaries that are presented to the workers. Clearly, there is a clear demarcation between the working members and the members that enjoy power, a caste system that eventually decides the fate of an individual.

The writing ensures that the politics in the drama is only restricted to an underlying second layer, even as you are acquainted with the young protagonist and his friend, both fans of Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan respectively who are shown to be backbenchers with an affinity to dream and sing their favourite song in class. But unlike his friend, the protagonist is shown to be good in studies that allows him a little extra leverage with regards to his teacher with whom he shares a warm bond of infactuation. There are moments of nostalgia that are sprinkled along the way, while consistently keeping the politics on the side, whose after-effects often lurk in the background even as you spot the protagonist’s mother urging her children to participate for the lugging activity on their holidays.

There is also a degree of aspiration versus the reality that the protagonist finds himself in, a conflict that shapes up the final act of the drama. While his heart lies in a scheduled dance practice at school, he is talked into going for his lugging job only for his sister to set him free on the pretext of him returning home on time. And this entire sequence that plays off eventually as a tragedy as the crux of the life of the protagonist wherein art was a form of escapism for him as opposed to his dark reality that further got darker with the tragedy unfolding. Such were the high stakes in the drama that the protagonist with a hungry stomach could not find strength enough to grief for his beloved ones, in what was such a hard-hitting scene. A scene just prior to that you saw him briefly trying to ‘steal’ a banana before being reprimanded as opposed to another child from an upper section of the society being offered a banana at will. Such was the skewed demarcation of the society, a stirling thought that lingers on, long after the drama has ended. The screenplay is brilliantly penned and makes for a powerful watch.