Rajan Khosa’s Gattu. Films with children as the main characters are no longer a rarity. Thank God for that! It’s imperative that our cinema cultivate a culture of entertainment that children can empathize with without the content becoming overpowering in its message-mongering motivations. Gattu is a delicately-threaded morality tale about a poor little boy, never sorry for himself except when play-acting the role of the bereft waif to get his way, who is taken in by his uncle (Naresh Kumar, brilliantly in character).

Now here’s where the subtle, often slyly humorous film gets tangled. It tells us that contrary to stereotypical expectations, the Uncle is no slave-driving villain. He has his good and bad moments with the kid. Gattu tells us there are no black and white zones to bring up under-privileged children. While child labour is prohibited, it can also be a way of providing sustenance for homeless kids. While Gattu longs for a school education, he uses the academic premise to hoodwink the students and teachers to implement his own devious plans.

While on the surface Gattu is a breezy, blithe, and effervescent look-see at the pangs and pinpricks of growing up at the grassroots, under the surface it ponders sensibly on the question of raising a poor child with dignity outside the rarefied precincts of a school.

All the kids, especially Mohammad Samad in the title role, are delightful in their natural ability to own the camera space. Director Rajan Khosa enters the world of innocence with devious intent. He penetrates the surface of juvenile guilelessness to explore the cunning that often underlines the machinations of the very young.

Gattu portrays heartwarming moments within and outside the school premise. While making a fervent pitch for every child to attend school, the narrative never misses out on a chance for a bit of fun on the fringes. Gattu is an endearing peep into a child’s life as he struggles with intuitive intelligence to bring together the two incompatible worlds of poverty and the solace of schooling. Mohammad Samad as the boy who would fly higher than a kite is a prized find. Sandesh Shandilya’s ebullient songs and music bring their own spot of sunshine in this not-to-be-missed tale about coming of age.

Gattu carries forward the recent trend of sensible, intelligent, funny, and moving films about child protagonists, namely Taare Zameen Par, I Am Kalam, and Stanley Ka Dabba. Add one more film to that luminous list of cinema on little wonders. What happened to Mohammad Samad, who was one of the most brilliant child actors of Indian cinema? At 12, he played the role of an orphaned street kid who dreams of defeating the big black kite ‘Kali’ in Rajan Khosa’s Gattu.

In real life, his financial condition is only marginally better than his onscreen character. Twelve-year-old Mohammad Samad’s father owned a grocery store in the backwater town of Roorkee. Mohammad is the youngest of six siblings.

A diehard Salman Khan fan, Mohammad told this writer, “There used to be six movie theatres in our town. Now there’s just one. My film is not releasing in our town. So I don’t know when my family would see what I’ve done. My friends in school have seen me on television. They keep asking me, ‘Arrey tu kaise hero ban gaya? Tu to achcha acting kar leta hai. Kahan se sikha?’” reveals the boy.

Mohammad had no clue about acting before he landed a role in the film. “I didn’t know what acting was. I just auditioned for Gattu when the crew came to our school looking for children to act in the film. I was among the 20 children who were selected. Then the list was made shorter. I was one of the four finalists. One fine day, they told me I was selected. I was happy to have come first. I wanted to make my parents proud.”

Then began the workshop. And it wasn’t easy for the boy from a small town. “Director Rajan Sir (Khosa) helped me a lot and so did the other acting teachers. I was told to do strange things like pretending I am in an ocean in a boat. Dheere-dheere main samajh gaya. It was just like understanding my lessons in classroom. My character also had to play-act in school pretending he was a jasoos. So I understood acting was all about pretending.”

However, when he had to cry in front of the camera, Mohammad got cold feet. “Rajan Sir said, ‘Rona padega.’ I didn’t know how to cry on camera. He said he would take care of it. But I was really scared I would get it wrong. But I managed. When the film was screened, people say I’m good. So I must be good at acting. They told my father I must become an actor when I grow up. I love Salman Khan’s movies. When I grow up, I want to be like him. I also love Katrina Kaif.”