Cleverly titled and with an inordinary premise, The Astronaut and His Parrot tells the story of an astronaut, Iqbal Ali, who gets thrown into space after an accident causes his spaceship to explode, killing the rest of the team. As the last surviving member, he desperately reaches out to anyone who could be listening. And who responds? A fortune-telling parrot, Manohar!
There are two aspects of short films that I thoroughly enjoy – to see how much can be fit into a short period of time and an open ending that lets your imagination run wild. The Astronaut and His Parrot has both!
When Iqbal realises he’s talking to a parrot, he immediately thinks of how he can contact his family, especially his five-year-old daughter Afreen. In a short ten minutes, director Arati Kadav manages to create a connection between Iqbal and the audience – a connection that sometimes even full-length feature films fail to make. The feeling of despair, slightest glimmer of hope, palpable fear of death, all these emotions were portrayed so impactfully through the acting, writing and direction, that I could not help but feel emotionally involved in Iqbal’s survival. Even after knowing that it wasn’t going to end well, you felt his pain and urgency to reach out to his daughter. And you felt the frustration at his attempts to teach a parrot one simple line “Afreen ke papa, chaand ke paas, Afreen ka khayal rakhenge.” [Afreen’s dad, from the moon, will watch over her]. And you released a sigh of relief when Manohar the parrot manages to learn it.
While watching Iqbal teach Manohar this single-sentence message, I imagined what the ending would be. I expected Iqbal’s daughter, Afreen, to run into an astrologer in a park whose parrot turned out to be Manohar. Yet, the actual ending was much more fitting. I watched Manohar fly away and scream the message to the rest of the world, keeping his promise to Iqbal. I watched his parrot friends learn and repeat the message. And it brought an almost watery smile to my face as I imagined what Afreen would feel when she finally did hear it, years later, maybe on a day when she most needed to hear it.Â
The Astronaut and His Parrot is a heart-breaking yet wholesome and endearing film. It made a lasting impression in a short amount of time and left me feeling like I’ve just been a part of something extra-terrestrial (pun intended!). The short film is available to stream for free on YouTube – watch it now to know exactly what I mean!
