
Genre: Feature Documentary
Release Date: 22nd August, 2014
Cast: Loha Singh
Director/s: Fahad Mustafa, Deepti Kakkar
Writer: Fahad Mustafa
Producer/s: Deepti Kakkar, Fahad Mustafa
Plot: In Kanpur, India, Loha Singh is the local robin-hood, stealing electricity so that homes and businesses could function normally in the face of day-long power-cuts. Meanwhile the first female chief of the electricity supply company has vowed to rid the town of illegal connections and increase supply. In a summer of crisis, sparks will fly…
Rating: 3.5/5 Stars (Three and Half stars)
Star cast: Loha Singh
Director/s: Fahad Mustafa, Deepti Kakkar
User Rating:
When the folksy voice of Rahul Ram introduces the city of Kanpur to you, there is a certain beauty in the picture. It isn’t the familiar kind of beauty that globalized metros flaunt; it is the rustic, earthen love that touches deep. Deepti Kakkar and Fahad Mustafa’s film hits all the right notes despite its non conclusive one. The beauty of the film is its sensitivity towards the issue at hand. Coming from someone who has braved load shedding issues for many years in Ranchi, the story’s plight is a very relatable one.
To survive the power shortage in an industrial town like Kanpur, the film presents Loha Singh as an elite, because he is the power fixer for all. He is the Katiyabaaz who fixes wires all over Kanpur and walks with the swagger that conveys he rules the city. Quite certainly he does, the Kanpur market and small time industries swear by his name. He is the Messiah in a city that survives on power theft and he is the thief in question.
The film’s tone is commendable because at no point is Loha shown through a mosaic of righteousness. He is presented as is – the power supplier to people’s homes without official connections. But Fahad and Deepti’s heart lies with this hero. And whose wouldn’t, after all, he is the jaanbaaz who puts his life in danger and fixes the power shortage of the city in no time.
The film invests a considerable amount of time on Ritu Maheshwari, the bureaucrat put incharge of Kanpur Electricity Supply who battles volatile politicians and attempt at changing her department with able mentoring but the illegal katiya system is so ingrained in the fabric of Kanpur’s thinking that it’s hard to seek the right path out for them. Maheshwari battles lackadaisical approach of her team, the people of Kanpur and politicians all with well meaning intention at heart. At one cue, she says that for a bureaucrat it is easy to merely sign papers but to sit up and change a reluctant system is a war to wage.