It’s quite a responsibility to be trusted to engage with a debutante’s fragile creation. Operating outside the ‘system’ with few resources, featuring yet-to-be-proven faces – a newbie ‘indie’ film crew might be among the purest underdogs out there. It can colour the judgement of most fiercely ‘objective’ critics. Despite how much one might be rooting for a film, the experience of it rarely lies. The good intentions are visible, the rawness of craft is rationalised, the obvious missteps grate the senses, and the naive sincerity can be disarming. You want to be mindful of the limitations of a production like this, but also will kid-gloving the undertaking breed a level of indolence in the crew’s next outing? Will there be a next outing, if one employs the brutal honesty extended to other films out there? Is it fair to measure all films by similar yardsticks?I went through many beats while watching Tanmaya Shekhar’s Nukkad Natak – a film waiting in the wings for a release for over a year. Promoted by crew members themselves, with the help of a word-of-mouth campaign (and a couple of kind-hearted patrons in filmmaker Imtiaz Ali and actor Danish Hussain) – the film has made it to theatres near us. In a time when film production is at its most cynical, star-centric and theatrical exhibition is being considered the domain of high-concept spectacles – the self-financed release of Shekhar’s film alone is a victory. However, while evaluating the merits of his film, it’s important we keep the narrative aside, and simply delve into what the film does well, and what it could have been more discerning about. Nukkad Natak, translating to ‘street play’, is set around two engineering students – Molshri and Shivang. They’re both members of the college street-play group, co-opting social issues from the safety of their computer labs, after consuming Netflix documentaries on their latest ‘issue’. Like it happens, the duo are chalk and cheese. Molshri is the enthusiastic, firebrand on campus, who acts before she thinks. Shivang is the unsure accomplice — mostly cajoling her out of her well-meaning-but-rarely-thought-through social justice initiatives. One night when a canteen manager publicly humiliates a worker, she vows to teach him a lesson by stealing most of his inventory of confectionaries. Stringing Shivang along for the job, they eventually get caught — and face expulsion. Six months away from graduation, this is the worst nightmare for most students in India. A still from Nukkad Naatak.Her surface vigilantism aside, Molshri is desperate to graduate with a job stationed in Mumbai to be with her boyfriend. Shivang’s challenges are a bit more complex. Born in a privileged family that owns a hospital business, he’s still closeted about his sexuality; only expressing himself by lurking on gay livecam websites. An admission in a foreign university for a Master’s programme will fuel his plans to settle abroad, far away from his family members, where he can live without judgement. All these plans go for a tail-spin, when the Disciplinary Committee doesn’t see any merit in retaining them as students. Some quick-thinking on Molshri’s part ensures that the empathetic Director (played by Danish Hussain) gives them both a second chance, if they can go to a nearby slum — and convince five children to enroll in a school.Street-plays as a medium are meant to be unsubtle, loud, and direct in their messaging. Shekhar’s film borrows those attributes, showcasing two clueless students — for whom social issues are a way to further their on-campus personality. Being the solution-driven engineers, they look for the most optimised route to overturn their expulsion. Failing to convince the parents to educate their children, they bribe them. However, it’s only after they are reinstated in college, do both Molshri and Shivang come to terms with their own performative behaviour as people. She starts to teach a girl, Chhoti (Nirmala Haldar) in her free time. Shivang, earlier afraid of being labelled on campus, becomes less tentative about his sexuality, and doing right by a former acquaintance.The first time Shekhar’s film seemed to find its feet, is in a scene when Molshri scolds Chhoti for not cooperating with her ‘extraordinary’ efforts. It’s a lovely scene encapsulating the maze of ‘progress’, and how slow the process of affecting real-life change really is. It reveals to Molshri the selflessness, patience required to follow through on her noble intentions. All this good work is undone in the next scene, when Shivang’s voiceover literalises the subtext of the scene with platitudes like ‘Chhoti was being educated by Molshri, but even Molshri was being educated by Chhoti on how to educate’. If it’s on-the-nose, then the makers might cite it as the film borrowing the (lack of) subtlety of a street play. I was also slightly bewildered by the absence of parents on screen in both Shivang and Molshri’s lives. Except for a couple of phone calls, Shivang’s father only appears to be a voice of validation on the phone. Molshri’s parents aren’t even mentioned. Neither of them have enough interiority to make us root for them. The acting is raw – where most of the performance is visible. The only character, who seemed comfortable in his skin appeared to be that of of Piyush (Mayank Shandilya), Shivang’s acquaintance and the president of the in-house LGBTQIA+ club. I liked the film searching for its form, especially during a key sequence when it tries to shed its skin of being a ‘tourist’ in the slum, placing the camera in front of slum residents previously melting in the background, to introduce themselves. It’s probably the first time Molshri actually sees them, instead of through them. For all its quirks and faults, Shekhar’s film ends on more assured footing compared to when it began. The acting is more restrained, even the songs blend in more seamlessly into the scenes. A sincere, touching message written on a blackboard takes Molshri back to the slum, for a last-ditch effort to encourage parents to send their children to school. Predictably, a nukkad natak saves the day. Tanmaya Shekhar’s film may not fully transcend its limitations, but by the time the curtain falls, it has found something more important than refined craft: conviction. And that, for a debut eventually finding its voice, this is a film worth watching.*Nukkad Natak is playing in select theatres.