Synopsis
Station Master Phool Kumar is the story of Phool Kumar. Phool Kumar was a star performer in his earlier role as signal operator at busy Gorakhpur Junction. As recognition of his performance, he is promoted to the post of station master of small station Kesupur. There is hardly any work here for a station master with only 2 daily trains. Phool Kumar gets bored, he starts acting weirdly. As a result, both his colleagues start worrying about him… This is all until someone catches his attention. Who is she? Does the story has a happy ending?
What works
The story is not about Phool Kumar alone. The story is of so many young migrants around the world who leave their hometown, their friends and families for a career progression. It is the hence, the story of the their loneliness in the foreign land.
The short film is also the story of the mismatches between promotional aspirations and reality. Phool Kumar shows extreme adverse post-promotion effect when the promoted misses his actions are previous lower role. Lastly, this is also the story of a young guy who meets a beautiful girl. Depicting all these seemingly complex and deeper contexts coherently in 12-minute short film is where it shines.
Namit Das and Rajkumar act extremely well. But then, we cannot expect anything short of perfection from them anyway! Annsh also brings out the innocence in her character.
Another delightful part is the whole setup of small railway station, which is designed very realistically. In fact, I almost mistook it for a real railway station until I checked it to be Panvel’s film studio. Papon has lent his voice for the song ‘Dhokadhari’ which is pleasant on ears.
What could have been better
The focus of the story completely moves to a boy-girl story after Phool spots Asha. Now, we may be acting pedantic here, but this is something that we didn’t like much. Apart from that, no deal breakers.
Verdict
Not great, but deserves a watch.
AglaPlay Verdict: Deserves a watch AglaPlay Rating: 3.0/5 Language: Hindi Duration: ~12 minutes Writer: Ambar Chakravarty Director: Ambar Chakravarty Cast: Namit Das (Phool Kumar), Rajkumar Kanojia (Cleaner) & Anssh Shekhawat (Asha)
