Rasika Dugal sees a gap in Hindi cinema: very few films place a child’s world at the centre of the story. Her latest, Little Thomas, tries to close that gap by letting a boy’s curiosity drive the plot rather than treating him as a supporting part of an adult drama.
Directed by Kaushal Oza and backed by Anurag Kashyap, the film stars Gulshan Devaiah, Rasika Dugal and Hridansh Parekh. It is set in 1990s Goa, with the larger changes of post-liberalisation India unfolding in the background.
A question that carries a film
The premise is simple: Thomas wants a sibling and keeps asking his parents where babies come from. What begins as a child’s innocent wish gradually opens a larger conversation about childhood, family and how adults handle questions they may not be ready to answer.
Rasika, who plays Jessie Miranda, says the film is interested in what a child’s mind conjures up when adult answers do not add up. Part of the charm is the gap between what Thomas asks and what the grown-ups can say. They search for a “child-friendly vocabulary… or any vocabulary” to answer him, and that struggle becomes the film’s comedy.
“Children are often part of a larger narrative, but their own experiences, questions and ways of looking at life can be incredibly compelling in themselves.”
— Rasika Dugal
Why a child’s point of view matters
Rasika points out that Indian cinema has seen fewer stories where a child’s world is the subject itself. Children usually appear within someone else’s journey. Little Thomas flips that: the grown-ups react to the boy’s logic, not the other way around.
His questions are not simply jokes. They invite the audience to reflect on whether adults give children enough room to ask, explore and understand. That makes the film feel like a children’s story that adults are also allowed to take seriously.
What Little Thomas puts on screen
- A 1990s Goa setting seen through a child’s eyes
- A boy’s wish for a sibling that becomes a series of loaded questions
- Humour built on adult discomfort, not on mocking the child
- A quiet look at a parents’ relationship and a changing India
For audiences, the pull is the unfiltered honesty of a child’s questions. For Hindi cinema, the reminder is that a simple question — “where do babies come from?” — can be enough to sustain a full feature when the film trusts its young protagonist.
That trust is what makes Little Thomas more than a family film; it is a small plea for more stories told from a child’s height.
Source: Filmibeat