Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone had an estimated budget of $130 million dollars. Aabra Ka Daabra
(2004), Bollywood’s own “plucky young boy at a school of magic” film,
cost about 80 million rupees, which converts to a little under two
million dollars. And watching the film, you can see the difference. Aabra Ka Daabra’s
computer effects all have that cartoony, fakey look you get with cheap
cgi, and the sets are dressed with what appear to be dollar store
Halloween decorations. Still, I’m a lifelong Doctor Who fan,
and I fear no cheap sets or bad special effects; my childhood hero was
once menaced by a man wearing green bubble wrap, after all.
Aabra’s hero is Shanu (Athit Naik), a new student at the Aabra Ka Daabra School of Magic. As we learn in flashback, Shanu is not an orphan with a great destiny. His father (Krrishna Sonie) was a stage magician who vanished while performing a dangerous escape act, and Shanu wants to become a great magician in order to prove that his father wasn’t a fraud. Shanu manages to win not one but two Wonka-esque contests, gaining a scholarship to the school of his choice, so he picks Aabra Ka Daabra (which does not seem to be at all secret, since everyone knows what Shanu is talking about.)
At school, Shanu quickly befriends Limo Chacha (Anupam Kher), the hirsute groundskeeper, and two students named Pinky and Dinky (Hasnika Motwani and Esha Tridevi). He’s also promptly harassed by Changizi (Vishal Lalwani), the sinister head boy, and is threatened by R.B. (Tiara), the glamorous-but-evil headmistress who enjoys punishing students just a little too much.
And we have magic school hijinks for a while. Shanu’s “young gang” (that’s what the subtitles call them) clashes with Changezi’s “elder gang”. (This sounds a lot like Hogwarts’ clashing Houses, but in practice the conflict owes more to Josh than to Tom Brown’s School Days.) The students learn how to ride flying carpets, and use them to play a game that is entirely unlike Quidditch, since the rules actually make sense. Limo Chacha creates a magical homunculus named Chuchu who is annoying and pointless and looks like Casper the Friendly Ghost wearing a green hat.
The plot has to surface sooner or later, though. after a late night meeting with Limo Chacha, Shanu and his friends invisibly follow R.B. to her secret lair, where he discovers that his father is actually still alive! It turns out dad was a teacher at Aabra Ka Daabra, and discovered how to make the Elixir of Life, which the subtitles repeatedly refer to as “the aphrodisiac”; I’m just going to keep telling myself that this is a translation error. R.B. wanted the elixir, but Dad wouldn’t give it to her, and left the school. She had her goons kidnap him from the show, and she’s been holding him captive ever since, trying to force him to create the Elixir for her, so she can rule the world. Shanu gathers his friends, and sets out to rescue his father.
There’s no getting around the fact that this film is a blatant attempt to cash in on Harry Potter, right down to the sequel-hunting ending. Still, the film is a near complete thematic inversion of the source material; Harry Potter is an extended metaphor for adolescent angst, with its hero being a special child of destiny who discovers a world riddled with secrets and institutional corruption, where the adults are all evil, incompetent, or simply never there when he needs them, and the only people he can really rely on are his friends. Shanu, on the other hand, comes from a loving family, the only real source of trouble at the school is R.B. herself, and while Pinky and Dinky prove their worth as friends, the rest of the staff at school prove equally helpful. Conversely, while Harry is thrust into adventure, and all too often succeeds through his own specialness, Shanu chooses his own path, and succeeds through superior virtue. The film is very concerned with virtue, actually; the production company is best known for its devotional films, and Aabra Ka Daabra itself slips into devotional territory more than once, with the biggest dance number being a hymn to Shiva.
Aabra Ka Daabra is not going to become a hugely successful international phenomenon. It is a reasonably entertaining children’s film, though; my Bollywood-loving nieces (the only children I had handy to experiment upon) certainly enjoyed it.
Aabra’s hero is Shanu (Athit Naik), a new student at the Aabra Ka Daabra School of Magic. As we learn in flashback, Shanu is not an orphan with a great destiny. His father (Krrishna Sonie) was a stage magician who vanished while performing a dangerous escape act, and Shanu wants to become a great magician in order to prove that his father wasn’t a fraud. Shanu manages to win not one but two Wonka-esque contests, gaining a scholarship to the school of his choice, so he picks Aabra Ka Daabra (which does not seem to be at all secret, since everyone knows what Shanu is talking about.)
At school, Shanu quickly befriends Limo Chacha (Anupam Kher), the hirsute groundskeeper, and two students named Pinky and Dinky (Hasnika Motwani and Esha Tridevi). He’s also promptly harassed by Changizi (Vishal Lalwani), the sinister head boy, and is threatened by R.B. (Tiara), the glamorous-but-evil headmistress who enjoys punishing students just a little too much.
And we have magic school hijinks for a while. Shanu’s “young gang” (that’s what the subtitles call them) clashes with Changezi’s “elder gang”. (This sounds a lot like Hogwarts’ clashing Houses, but in practice the conflict owes more to Josh than to Tom Brown’s School Days.) The students learn how to ride flying carpets, and use them to play a game that is entirely unlike Quidditch, since the rules actually make sense. Limo Chacha creates a magical homunculus named Chuchu who is annoying and pointless and looks like Casper the Friendly Ghost wearing a green hat.
The plot has to surface sooner or later, though. after a late night meeting with Limo Chacha, Shanu and his friends invisibly follow R.B. to her secret lair, where he discovers that his father is actually still alive! It turns out dad was a teacher at Aabra Ka Daabra, and discovered how to make the Elixir of Life, which the subtitles repeatedly refer to as “the aphrodisiac”; I’m just going to keep telling myself that this is a translation error. R.B. wanted the elixir, but Dad wouldn’t give it to her, and left the school. She had her goons kidnap him from the show, and she’s been holding him captive ever since, trying to force him to create the Elixir for her, so she can rule the world. Shanu gathers his friends, and sets out to rescue his father.
There’s no getting around the fact that this film is a blatant attempt to cash in on Harry Potter, right down to the sequel-hunting ending. Still, the film is a near complete thematic inversion of the source material; Harry Potter is an extended metaphor for adolescent angst, with its hero being a special child of destiny who discovers a world riddled with secrets and institutional corruption, where the adults are all evil, incompetent, or simply never there when he needs them, and the only people he can really rely on are his friends. Shanu, on the other hand, comes from a loving family, the only real source of trouble at the school is R.B. herself, and while Pinky and Dinky prove their worth as friends, the rest of the staff at school prove equally helpful. Conversely, while Harry is thrust into adventure, and all too often succeeds through his own specialness, Shanu chooses his own path, and succeeds through superior virtue. The film is very concerned with virtue, actually; the production company is best known for its devotional films, and Aabra Ka Daabra itself slips into devotional territory more than once, with the biggest dance number being a hymn to Shiva.
Aabra Ka Daabra is not going to become a hugely successful international phenomenon. It is a reasonably entertaining children’s film, though; my Bollywood-loving nieces (the only children I had handy to experiment upon) certainly enjoyed it.
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