''Tahaan – A Boy With a Grenade'' is an Indian

Hindi-language Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been d ...

drama film by

Santosh Sivan Santosh Sivan (born 8 February 1964) is an Indian cinematographer, film director, producer and actor known for his works in Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi cinema. Santosh graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India and has to date ...

. The film is based on the life of a young boy and his pet donkey. It is a fable-like journey of the

eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

ous eight-year-old boy, whose life revolves around the pursuit to find real purpose in his little world. The film stars Purav Bhandare as the young boy. Anupam Kher,

Sarika Sarika Thakur is an Indian actress and costume designer. In 2005, she won the National Film Award for Best Actress for the English-language film '' Parzania''. She was also awarded the National Film Award for Best Costume Design for her work ...

Rahul Bose Rahul Bose (born 27 July 1967) is an Indian actor, director, screenwriter, and social activist. Bose has appeared in Bengali films such as '' Mr. and Mrs. Iyer'', ''Kalpurush'', '' Anuranan'', '' Antaheen'', '' Laptop'' and '' The Japanese Wif ...

Rahul Khanna Rahul Khanna (born 20 June 1972) is an Indian actor, VJ and writer who works in Bollywood. He is the older son of actor turned politician Vinod Khanna and the older brother of Akshaye Khanna. Early life and background Khanna was born and rai ...

and

Victor Banerjee Victor Banerjee is an Indian actor who appears in English, Hindi, Bengali and Assamese language films. He has worked for directors such as Roman Polanski, James Ivory, Sir David Lean, Jerry London, Ronald Neame, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Shy ...

form the rest of the cast. It was filmed on location in

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administere ...

Plot

After salvaging money using various means, Tahaan reaches the moneylender to reclaim Birbal. He is told that old Subhan Dar ( Anupam Kher) bought the donkey and went across the mountains in which Tahaan's father went missing. Gathering courage, Tahaan goes in search of the old man. He finds him and he follows Subhan and his assistant Zafar (

) and their mule train, leading Birbal despite their protests. Although Subhan promises to return Birbal to Tahaan if he can win a race against the incompetent Zafar when he wins Subhan refuses to give him Birbal. Instead, Subhan gives the donkey to his eight-year-old nephew. Zafar tries to give Tahaan his sunglasses as a replacement for the donkey, but Tahaan will not accept the gift. On his way back home, Tahaan encounters Idrees, a teenager who discourages him, saying that his efforts will not be sufficient to get Birbal back. Instead, he suggests to do him a favour. Tahaan is asked to take a package across the mountains in his onward journey. Upon seeing his eagerness, Idrees hands him over a grenade and says that when the time is right, he will be told what needs to be done. At a checkpoint, the package and grenade are not discovered due to the fact that the soldiers know and trust Subhan Darr. Tahaan is about to commit a terrorist act with the grenade and has already removed the pin when he changes his mind and throws it safely in a river. He then sees his father emerge from the building he almost blew up. Subhan's nephew learns that Tahaan is fond of Birbal, and at his request, Subhan gives the donkey back to Tahaan.

Cast

*Purav Bhandare as Tahaan * Anupam Kher as Subhan *

as Zafar *

as Haba, Tahaan's mother *

as, Tahaan's Grandfather *

Fatima Sana Shaikh Fatima Sana Shaikh (born 11 January 1992) is an Indian actress, who works in Hindi films. Shaikh appeared as a child artist in such films as ''Chachi 420'' (1997) and '' One 2 Ka 4'' (2001). In 2016, she portrayed wrestler Geeta Phogat in the to ...

as Zoya, Tahaan's elder sister *

as Kuku Saab *

Rasika Dugal Rasika Dugal (born 17 January 1985) is an Indian actress. She is known for her roles in several Indian movies and television shows. She made her screen debut with a small role, in the film ''Anwar'' (2007). And then she went onto star in many ...

as Nadira *Ankush Dubey as Idrees *Dheirya Sonech as Yasin *Tavasvat singh as Babina

Production

After major commercial releases such as ''

The Terrorist ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

'' (1999), ''

Asoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...

'' (2001), ''

Anandabhadram ''Anandabhadram'' (Anand's Bhadra) is a 2005 Indian Malayalam-language dark fantasy horror film based on the novel of the same name by Sunil Parameshwaran. The film was the debut Malayalam film venture of director Santosh Sivan and actress Riya ...

'' (2005) and ''

Before the Rains ''Before the Rains'' is a 2007 Indian- British period drama film directed by Santosh Sivan. The film is adapted from a story from the 2001 anthology Israeli film '' Asphalt Zahov''. It was filmed on location in Kerala, India and was releas ...

'' (2007), award-winning director

got the idea for this film after reading a newspaper report. He formed a

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular mor ...

-like story from the report. Since Kashmir is a strife-torn area, films are rarely picturised there. However, in the case of this film, Sivan thought that audiences can relate it to the film well. It was only after 18 years that a film was filmed in Kashmir. While filming in Pahalgam, Sivan realised to his surprise that children were comfortable with guns. It seemed to him that it was a part of everyday life for them. The film makes eloquent use of

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing.: ...

ic verses or ''azaan'', for which the director took help from research scholars in Kashmir.

When shooting there we only wanted to show the real life. I had heard some Quranic verses there at some
Dargah A dargah ( fa, درگاه ''dargâh'' or ''dargah'', Turkish: ''dergâh'', Hindustani: ''dargah'' दरगाह درگاہ, bn, দরগাহ ''dorgah'') is a shrine or tomb built over the grave of a revered religious figure, often a ...
. I thought I could use them to send a message of hope. I wanted to use the azaan for a nice purpose, a beautiful thing, not for any wrong deed... At the end I wanted to show the positive power of a dream.

Soundtrack

Critical reception

The film opened to generally positive reviews. Ziya Us Salam of '' The Hindu'' hailed the film as a 'visual poem' and "Responsible cinema, brilliant cinema." Raja Sen of

Rediff Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City. , it had more than 300 ...

gave it 4 out of 5 stars, calling it a "must-watch". Rajiv Masand of

CNN-IBN CNN-News18 (originally CNN-IBN) is an Indian English-language news television channel founded by Raghav Bahl based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is currently co-owned by Network18 Group and Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN provides interna ...

called it a "film of great virtue" and gave 3 out of 5 stars.

Baradwaj Rangan Baradwaj Rangan is an Indian film critic, writer, and formerly the deputy editor of '' The Hindu''. He later became a senior editor of Film Companion. Rangan won the National Film Award for Best Film Critic in 2006. Before joining ''The Hin ...

called it a "film of first-rate performances".

Awards

*Tahaan won a High Commendation in Children's Feature Film section at the 2009

Asia Pacific Screen Awards The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) is an international cultural initiative overseen by the Asia Pacific Screen Academy and headquartered in Australia. In order to realise UNESCO's goals of promoting and preserving the different cultures t ...

. *Tahaan Won Best feature film award, CIFEJ Award (Centre International du Film pour l' Enfant et la Jeunesse)and UNICEF Award at 11th Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People in 2008 held at

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...

*Tahaan won "The German Star of India award" at "Bollywood and Beyond" festival at Stuttgart Germany in 2009

Festivals

The film has gone to the following festivals: ;2008 *Pusan *Rome *Cinekid *London Film Festival *Olympia Film Festival in Greece. (Winner of 3 awards at the festival) *Amazonas in Brazil ;2009 *Palm Springs Festival in the USA. *Hong Kong International Film Festival *Stockholm International Film Festival *New York International Children's Film Festival *Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland *Cairo International Film Festival *Seattle International Film Festival *Titanic International Film Festival (Hungary) *Movies that Matter (Amsterdam) Showcase sponsored by the Amnesty International. *Munich Film Festival *Stuttgart Festival

Distribution

''Tahaan'' was picked up for US distribution by GKIDS. The film will play as the Centerpiece Selection of the MIAAC Indian Film Festival, as well as the Starz Denver Film Festival, the St Louis Film Festival, the Three Rivers Film Festival, and the New York/San Francisco International Children's Film Festival.

References

External links

* * {{Santosh Sivan 2008 films 2000s Hindi-language films Films set in Jammu and Kashmir Kashmir conflict in films Films directed by Santosh Sivan Films about donkeys