Ata Thambaycha Naay!

Mumbaikars are often seen complaining about the BMC (Brihanmumbai Mahanagar Corporation) when it comes to running the city. While these criticisms might be valid, it is their poor workers who are always at the receiving end since they become the face of BMC at ground level. Debutant filmmaker Shivraj Waichal’s Ata Thambaycha Naay! is a much deserved tribute to them and their painstaking efforts to keep the city functioning. But the movie goes much beyond displaying their difficult lives. It is based on a true and heartwarming incident in the lives of a few BMC workers in 2016, although the film features fictitious characters and their sub-stories. The Assistant Municipal Commissioner Uday Shirurkar (Ashutosh Gowariker) of BMC decides to get a group of its Class IV workers complete their 10th standard. They had to drop out of school due to some reason of the other. Shirurkar not only decides to provide them education free of cost at a night school but, on top of that, promises to pay them a remuneration for the same along with a chance of salary hike.

When waste collection by sanitation workers was briefly paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, it took just a couple of days to show us how important a role they play in society today. Be it choked drainages, burst water lines or piled up garbage heaps, the municipal safai karmacharis are the first responders that get to work. Unfortunately, they’re also the first ones to bear the brunt of citizens’ wrath in such cases. Often it is the educated person that doesn’t think twice before covering their nose and making derogatory remarks about these workers. That lack of empathy and abundance the entitled behaviour also highlights the difference between education and literacy. In multiple scenes of his debut directorial, Shivraj Waichal sheds light on this. At its heart, Ata Thambaycha Naay is an ode to the BMC’s sanitation workers whose life is a paradox – they simultaneously form the backbone of the city and are among the most neglected lot. The film is based on the real story of class IV BMC workers going back to school at the behest of Uday Shirurkar, the erstwhile assistant municipal commissioner of BMC’s ward B.