‘Ata Thambaycha Naay!’ review: A Mumbai miracle grounded in reality

If we hadn’t been told that Ata Thambaycha Naay! was based on a true story that took place in Mumbai, we wouldn’t have believed it.

A conscientious Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officer? Who is concerned about the workers sweeping Mumbai’s roads, mending leaking pipes and cleaning drains? Who not only encourages his barely educated employees to enrol in a night school but also provides financial and moral support?

But it did happen. In 2017, Assistant Municipal Commissioner Udaykumar Shirurkar spurred on 23 workers to complete their basic school education. The Marathi movie inspired by this miracle is hugely uplifting but sensibly grounded too.

Shivraj Waichal’s Ata Thambaycha Naay! (Don’t Give Up) follows working-class members of a vital and yet invisible social category. The screenplay by Waichal, Omkar Gokhale and Arvind Jagtap bristles with controlled anger at the treatment of conservancy workers, their living conditions and their daily humiliations.

The plot is bookended by scenes of Maruti (Siddharth Jadhav) attending a function at his daughter Sweety’s school. Sweety is a topper but Maruti is an eight-standard failure. When he isn’t fixing water pipes, he’s moonlighting as a taxi driver.

Maruti’s colleagues perform the jobs everybody wants done but won’t do themselves. Apsara (Kiran Khoje) and Jayshree (Prajakta Hanamghar) sweep the streets and empty out garbage bins. Sakharam (Bharat...

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