Review: ‘The Station Master Phool Kumar,’ or the Art of Romanticising Dull and Empty Train Stations


Are you one of those people who’s waiting for an end to your endless boredom? Or have you ever been a lonesome loser waiting for the right person to come by and sweep you off your feet and brighten up your dull days? Well, our protagonist in the short film “Station Master Phool Kumar” from Writer/Director Ambar Chakravarty, is just that sort of person. 

A lonely station master as the title suggests, Phool Kumar spends his time bored out of his mind at his desk, running a near empty train station. The station masters before him were as lonesome as he was and one of them was even driven to the brink of insanity (having begun work in a shirt and trousers, but having fled the job while dressed in a saree, as the narrator recalls). Phool is however not completely devoid of companionship. He is surrounded by the other inhabitants of the Kesupur train station—a dog, a sweeper, a tea seller who also doubles as a ticket seller, and a homeless man who uses the platform as a bed; but all of them would rather go about their jobs than make small talk with the lonely station master. 

Phool’s loneliness and pessimistic nature as a result of this said loneliness is also slowly driving him nuts, much like it did to his predecessors…so much so that even the arrival of a goods train sets his heart a-flutter and he does a joyful jig, while waving his green flag at it! 

The station master also longs for the return of the good old days when he could signal multiple trains all year round at a station in the city instead of just waiting for a train to pass by very rarely at the small town station of Kesupur. However, a chance appearance of a mysterious woman on the opposite platform might just be the signal that Phool was waiting for in his lonesome life. The rest of this short film revolves around the shy station master’s desperate attempts to woo her. 

“Station Master Phool Kumar” will definitely strike a chord with audiences who prefer their stories to be set in a small, quiet town rather than in a big crowded and flashy city—much like the Amazon Prime series “Panchayat” or like the works of writer Ruskin Bond, which conveyed beauty in the simplicity of hill stations and even train tunnels. 

The short film also benefits from a lovely soundtrack comprising of Indo-French fusion melodies sung by the underrated Papon and a delightful lead performance by the equally underrated Namit Das, fresh off the success of Mira Nair’s mini-series “A Suitable Boy,” where he played another humble character from a small town, shoemaker Haresh. 

As station master Phool, he delivers a memorable performance without much dialogue. His body language (especially his little happy jigs) and his expressions alone help make the station master an endearing and quirky character to root for. Also, while I’m not the biggest fan of voiceover narration—and feel that it can be quite tedious and lends a monotonous feel to the proceedings if overdone—the soothing narration by Vijay Raaz here only adds to the charm of this short film. The film is one of those rare gems which will leave you with a big smile on your face and fill your heart with hope during this seemingly endless lockdown. 

“Station Master Phool Kumar” is part of the “Offbeats” short film anthology from Gorilla Shorts comprised of “six short films with uncommon characters (IMDb).” You can watch the film on YouTube or in the window below.