Nine-year-old Samay lives with his family at a train station in India. When a train stops, it sells tea. This is the business left to his father, a man of Brahmin caste. Samay likes to go to the cinema, but he is told that “it’s not appropriate”. Only a religious film would do, but the Galaxy cinema in the nearest town has attractions like The gangster. Samay finds a way to circumvent his father’s ban. He befriends Fazal, the presenter at the Galaxy. In exchange for his mother’s delicious food parcels, Samay can now watch all the treasures of Indian cinema from the booth. He adores the stars, sings along to the songs, and at some point he begins to dream of “studying the light” himself. For him, this is how the art of cinema begins – with shards of paint in which something is reflected.
