Meri Nimmo- Sublime Story of Childhood, First Love and Heartbreak

 

Meri Nimmo (originally titled Nimmo), is the uncomplicated and sweet story of a nine-year-old boy and his first love, which is also his first experience with heartbreak. Hemu might disagree about the uncomplicated part, because unrequited love can be complicated even at age nine. You can watch this movie for free online on the Mzaalo app by Xfinite (Blockchain digital platform)- the best app to watch movies and series for free online.

 

Hemu is a confident and slightly precocious boy, the only son of a single parent. His mother is glad for the close-knit community in their hamlet and the support offered by a young neighbour, Nimmo. Hemu has a huge crush on Nimmo, who is at least twice his age. So when the village starts buzzing with news of Nimmo’s upcoming engagement, Hemu, egged on by his best friend, decides he must propose to her first.

 

 

 

Hemu (a fantastic Karan Dave), from Meri Nimmo, in an India eons away from a Hollywood rom-com universe, might have perfectly related to the boy’s frustration and the adults’ condescension. He, too, is a victim of age. It is an odd universality of sorts, across times and cultures – children, no matter how different, will remain children. It falls upon them to embrace this identity, or, as in nine-year-old Hemu’s case, resent it till they can.

 

 

 

Hemu himself might have wanted to be awarded an adult story with an operatic score of strings and mandolins, but he is instead given a Home Alone-ish children’s-film score of mischief and summer. When he finally does reach a resolution in the last shot, we see the treatment switch to ‘adult’ mode: slow-motion strides, Sairat-style music, followed by matter-of-fact silence. He may even be seconds away from being called ‘Hemant’.

 

You sense, as in so many childhood instances, that Hemu’s feelings have been derived from lofty Bollywood movies – posters of Aashiqui and DDLJ find their way into his close-knit environment. But you also sense that he has “grown” to feel this brand of fondness (“woh waali pyaar”) for her; he is now shy about her bathing or feeding him, and blushes at his mother’s crude reminders of his toilet-training days. “I’m no child,” he utters endlessly, before shooting daggers at anyone who dares to address him by a typically patronizing term of endearment. At one point, down with a fever, Hemu takes pride in the fact that Nimmo has forbidden him from going out to play with his friends. “Nimmo said no,” he grins triumphantly; he likes this control, and not uncannily, mistakes it for greater, grander things. Like so many Indian men, this shows that he, too, interprets the act of caregiving as a symbol of platonic care and mutual companionship – a romantic extension of motherhood.

 

The jaunty, French-cinema style background music by Krishna underlines a lightness of being. Anjali Patil’s beaming smile and open affection for Hemu seem to come naturally to the actress, which makes Hemu’s infatuation all the more endearing. Karan Dave is a delight as the oddly authoritative and independent child who’s in a hurry to grow up.

 

Peeyush Shrivastava’s story (screenplay and dialogues) is stretched to one hour 30 minutes, especially as it's clear how the film will end. It’s obvious that Hemu will get a reality check and life will go on. But life is not always about heightened drama and in that sense Shankalya mostly presents authentic small town life populated by myriad characters (though a couple of scenes are a bit stagy), at the core holding on to an innocent world where children experience growing pains and adults go through their own rites of passage.

 

It’s sweet, even when it gets repetitive (90 minutes does seem long here), because the makers don’t employ the usual crutches accompanying such themes – there is no ‘third wheel’ in the form of a rudely-shut-down schoolgirl, no showdowns and subplots, no judgmental family whispers, and except for the misplaced thread of a roguish local aspiring to be Nimmo’s suitor, the focus is largely on the child and his dream girl.

 

 

Hemu is a perceptively written character; he isn’t your regular boy of cinematically irrational or unpredictable disposition. The grey streaks are incidental. He seems like the kind of boy who, to validate the prematurity of his emotions, has unintentionally embraced the idea of puberty earlier than his peers. He is older than his age because his love demands this of him. There are clues of this “maturity” scattered throughout – in the very first scene during a gully cricket match, his friends refuse to let him bat because he “plays too many balls” without scoring runs.

 

 

 

 

Very few children, if any, think of the art of batting in terms of time. He is also shown to draw his sister’s high-school science diagrams (a heart, as it turns out) with considerable ease; he is an artist in a village of numbers and traditions. He has an empathetic and independent single mother, which quite explains his angling towards a different generation – and his confusion at the prospect of Nimmo’s arranged marriage. His reactions stem not so much from heartbreak as they do from disappointment; “she’s settling,” he may be thinking, “for a life that’s not hers.” He is angry for not only losing her, but also for losing respect for her. He wears the face of a disillusioned boy breaking free, rather than a sad boy broken freely.

 

These little traits are what perhaps set Hemu – and the straight-lined, well-acted film,slightly apart from the rest.The cheery song (which loosely translates to, “Will this pass, too?”) that he once wanted to sing to lift her spirits during dark phases is destined to become the soundtrack of his own anti-coming-of-age story. This will pass, he senses, and he will go from crazy and stupid and love to just a rash batsman who loves scoring runs. Growing up, as we all know, isn’t all it’s made out to be.

 

Do not miss the movie, you can watch Meri Nimmo for free online on the Mzaalo app, and earn rewards. The rewards are redeemable on the app itself on various brands