Director: Dominic Megam Sangma
Writer: Dominic Megam Sangma
Cast: Torikhu A. Sangma, Handam R. Marak, Celestine K. Sangma
Early on in Rapture, a cherubic little boy runs with desperate haste away from two other boys, who yell at him, promising to teach him a “real lesson”. The first boy is Kasan (Torikhu A. Sangma) and the two chasing him are his friends who have been punished in class because of a prank they played on Kasan. The two boys catch up with Kasan and pin him down to the ground. Kasan whimpers that he hadn’t ratted his friends out to the teacher, but maybe his mother had said something. One of the boys threatens Kasan, “If you ever complain again, I’ll punch your face.” They demand Kasan apologise to them, which Kasan does without hesitation, his words softened and muffled by virtue of his cleft lip and being face down in dirt. “Do you mind that we do this to you?” one of the boys asks. Kasan says no. They let him go and in sharp contrast to how they were holding him down, the two boys tenderly straighten Kasan up, dusting the dirt off his clothes. “Are we still friends?” one of the boys asks Kasan, his tone gentle and empty of threats. “Yes, we are,” Kasan replies. The three of them amble homewards and one of Kasan’s friends repeats his threat, “If you complain again, I’ll punch your face”. This time, his voice has none of the anger and menace it had before. It’s playful as the scene of bullying shifts into one showing camaraderie, underlining the constrictions and support that one gets from belonging to a community.
Later in the film, Kasan will witness how differently people react when the one they’re bullying is considered an outsider, and it will reduce the boy to a terrified mess.