Maya’s Journey

The Visual:

We see a middle aged man putting bags in the back of a car, his wife comes from behind and hands him a box, which he puts in and both of them walk towards the front. The man moves to the gate awaiting, the woman from the other side of the car calls out,

The woman: “Maya!..Chalo”

She looks back at the gate of the house, into the verandah. We see a little girl (7-8 year old) (wearing jeans Barcelona Lionel Messi T-shirt and white shoes) walking languidly as if dragging her feet pulling up her backpack looking down at her feet, ignoring everyone and everything. The father at the gate puts a hand on her shoulder which she shrugs off, she walks up to the car, flings her backpack into the back seat, moves to climb up into the back. The parents exchange a knowing glance and quietly the mother gets into the car, the father moves to close the gate of the house, he gets in the car. The car starts moving. 

The girl looks back.

As she looks back, we see from her POV, the gate grows smaller and smaller, behind her the big roof of the home starts to grow smaller with the distance, we see a close up of the shuttle cock, now browned and dilapidated lying in a corner, it resembles a smudge now at a distance. A close up of the tree in the verandah, the broken glittery strings which have somewhat lost all the glitter due to weather exposure, hanging from it. It grows smaller and smaller till the string is invisible and the tree is just like a small shadow in the distance, the car moves ahead. The children playing football in the streets, look up and wave at the her, she waves back but as she watches they start to grow smaller and smaller till they disappear almost blurred till they seem like a dot in the distance, but she (the girl) is still unconsciously waving like as if she’s forgotten about it, as if she’s saying goodbye to everything that was. The town itself is just a speck in the distance now as they get on the highway, the girl keeps looking out, so we see barren lands, fields, things you see on the high way.

As she looks the city moves nearer to her and (her POV) we see the small structures looking like small blurs at a distance are now growing in size and we can make out shapes of buildings and skyscrapers forming at the distance. (This can be seen maybe in the reflected glass of the window like she looks at herself own reflection on the glass window.) We see her expression changing to something akin apprehension and fear, as if she understands that everything old is gone and the new is going to be scary and unknown. As she sees the city approaching her apprehension is very apparent. She sits up straighter as if bracing herself, the tall buildings seem to loom over her (the car) forming shadows, the over trafficked roads feel claustrophobic with the continuous honking and overtaking. She closes her eyes tightly and the hand fisted so tightly that the knuckles are white.

The car is moving towards a gate, the father slows down the car,

Father: “ghar aa gaya..” (We are home.)

The girl is startled out of her reverie, distracted she looks out the window of the car,

As she looks we can see her despair changing to surprise, surprise changing to wonder.

Girl’s POV:  She sees lush green trees, and children playing in the park/common plot.
People walking and talking.

As the car stops, she gets down and trying to get a better look at the children playing. Her mother hands her the bag, she distractedly takes it, more interested in looking around. As she walks around the boot of the car towards the front. She moves to the football turf ahead, she stands there looking at the kids playing, she then turns back, looks at her parents who are standing by the car smiling at her. She grins back at them. Just then a little boy walks out of the building, we see he is kicking a ball in front of him and following it, as he kicks it ahead, the girl stops it with her foot. They both look at each other and we see both of them wearing the same Lionel Messi T-shirts, they notice it at the same time and smile at each other.

The boy jerks his head towards the turf (like saying chal lets play!)

She looks back questioningly at her parents who nod too and laughing she runs off with the boy kicking the ball in front of her as the parents look on, visibly relieved. As the camera pans out, we see the outside Arial view of the whole Society, where the Mahindra life-spaces logo comes in

V.O.: Kyonki yaadein ghar se nahin, ghar unsey se banta hai.

(Because memories make a home.)

Mahindra LifeSpaces. Joyful Homecomings.