The aesthetics of childhood hunger and dreams in contemporary Indian cinema: Representation of children in Sahaj Paather Gappo, Kaaka Muttai and Stanley Ka Dabba

When we look at the representation of children in films in India, we can locate class-based, caste-based and gender-based anxieties within children who have been socially, economically and emotionally marginalized. The images of scarcity, hunger and the everyday resistance of children recall New Latin American Cinema. This film movement continues to influence cinemas of third-world countries like India, especially films portraying food and hunger and their impact on the physiological existence of children as their principal motifs. In this article, we analyse three such films, Stanley ka Dabba (2011), Kaaka Muttai (2014) and Sahaj Paather Gappo (2016), to elaborate on the aesthetics and politics of hunger and desire embedded in their portrayals of the dreams of children. We are inspired by Glauber Rocha’s concept of the ‘aesthetics of hunger’ – representing the oppressed, discarded children of the nation against the backdrop of capitalist amnesia.