NFDC (an Indian Government body) has funded this film about a simpleton titled ‘Gangoobai’ who is an aged Maharashtrian maid servant, a resident of Matheran, in Maharashtra, India.
Gangoobai is a childless, elderly widow, who have lived her life in the hill station of Matheran, near Mumbai. Old enough to be a grand mother in a typical conservative Indian lifestyle.
She loves tending to flowers in the garden where she is working as domestic help. She is concerned about tending to her beloved flowers and working as domestic help in a few homes. One of the weekend bungalows in Matheran is owned by the wealthy Hodiwala family.
This lady falls instantly in love with an exotic, custom-made saree – Gara saree, when she sees the daughter of her land lady and yearns to own one in her lifetime. She instantly falls in love with this exotic, custom-made creation – and longs to own one herself, knowing that it is an expensive saree.
All throughout these four years, she has lived her life weaving dreams of wearing a Gara saree, which is an exclusively hand embroidered chiffon saree which is like a personalized design on an expensive saree material.
She manages to save money over these years, against all odds, and then finally lands in Mumbai. This polluted, over-crowded city does have people believing in humanity, and the film is about her experiences with the selected people she comes across.
In this mega city, she is pleasantly surprised to find that people are the same everywhere. Despite their outward appearances, even those seemingly stone hearted, can be transformed by kindness and love.
The store who is supposed to deliver her expensive saree has a chief designer Rohan (Raj Zutshi) while Daksha (Meeta Vashisht) manages the clients/Store and Waman (Purab Kohli) is the Accountant of this store.
It is Waman’s warm heart that he allows Gangoobai to stay in his house till the designer saree is ready.
Finally, one day, Gangoobai collects her designer sari and attains her dream, only to face ultimate failure and betrayal at home by one whom she holds closest to her heart.
Yet, her essential goodness and unfailing generosity to life redeem the destruction of her dreams, and set her life on a path that surpasses anything that she could ever have imagined…
It is a story of struggle, hardships of this positive thinking spirited lady, Gangoobai.
Credits:
Banner: National Film Development Corporation (NFDC)
Dialogues: Abhay Tiwari
Music: Ved Nair
Camera: Anil Chandel, Sandeep Patil
Sound: Bhaskar Roy, Manoj Sikka
Art Director: Alok Halder
Genre: Drama
Cast:
Sarita Joshi – Gangoobai
Purab Kohli
Meeta Vasisht Daksha
Raj Zutshi
Gopi Desai
Rushad Rana
Nidhi Sunil
Behram Rana
Ankita Shrivastav
Aparna Khanekar
Gangoobai – movie review