Harun Arun is a delightful film, which is meant for kids but enjoyable for adults alike. The movie has won several awards at film festivals worldwide. The most notable being the Chicago Peace Prize at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. I wanted to see the movie because its filmmaker’s earlier film, The Blind Camel about an Indian child’s pursuit of his blind camel which strays into Pakistan across the almost unmarked Tharparkar-Sindh border, was a gripping story. It was widely appreciated at the Kara Film Festival two years ago.

Vinod Ganatra, the film’s director, who has made Harun Arun for the Children’s Film Society of India, was keen to exhibit this one-hour plus movie at the same festival, but sadly this year the organiser could not organise it.

Thanks to a foreign airline which was unduly late, I missed the screening at the international Children’s Film Festival held at Isfahan, where it was given the Golden Butterfly Award for the Best Entry from Asia.

Watching a movie on the TV screen is no substitute for seeing it on a big screen in a large hall, where there are no distractions, which was why I decided to watch Harun Arun at home close to midnight with the phone off the hook.

The movie’s story is simple. Harun is a gifted young boy, who lives with his grandfather in a village close to the Kutch border. He is very much into film music and can recall an Indian song for every occasion. He is also a good cook and excellent in embroidering indigenous designs on clothes.

His grandfather is nostalgic about Lakhpat, a village across the border from where he migrated in 1947 after the partition of India and Pakistan, leaving behind his married daughter. He yearns to visit her and also to meet his closest friend, a Hindu.

One day he decides to take Harun to his own native village. They cross the border when it’s dark, but as bad luck would have it, they part and the old man is picked up by the Indian border police for interrogation, while tired, Harun sleeps under a tree. He is discovered in the morning by three children, two sisters and a brother, who ask his name and, interestingly enough, when he says Harun, they think it is Arun, a name with which they are more familiar. They hide their new friend in a barn but their mother spots him. Initially, she considers Arun an intruder but he arouses her maternal instinct and she adopts him.

I am not a spoilsport so I won’t tell you the rest of the story. All I can is that the movie takes a couple of interesting turns. The film is in simple Gujarati with subtitles in English. It is difficult not to be impressed with the direction, photography and everyone’s acting. — Asif Noorani