Two

A bored young lad is wandering about his palatial home where has everything he is likely to need to eat, drink and play with. Then from his window he espies another boy outside playing on his makeshift flute. He then proceeds to get his more sophisticated instrument and out-blows him. His new pal goes and gets a drum - but the wealthier lad has a wind up monkey that can play two - at the same time. Not to be outdone, the poorer one returns wearing a menacing mask and wielding a bow and arrow. In response? Well another mask and a machine gun! Silence breaks out and the boys go their separate ways only for a kite to appear outside the barred windows of the house. It's freely darting about in the wind like a fish in a river but it's also fair game for a slingshot, or maybe even an air rifle? Now one boy's joy is another's sadness, one is smug the other despondent. Tenaciously, the flautist returns... This is quite a potent depiction of having things of value that are not really of value versus having nothing but having so much more. The effort from the young Ravi Kiran Karla as the boy who has everything is quite effective at engendering from the audience a sense that he's a spoilt and unlikeable kid whilst the expressions on the face of his poverty stricken counterpart illicit sympathy as Satyajit Ray offers us a subtle commentary on the haves and have nots. Though which has the most?