He's 12, roofless and he says no to adopt the swaggering amorality of his street friends. They call him Municipal Ghatkopar as that's the address where he was dumped as a kid. But he wishes to be called Salman Khan.

Strongly similar to Mira Nair's "Salaam Bombay" and far more resonantly delegate of Mumbai's slum children than "Slumdog Millionaire", "Thanks Maa" is a journey into lives that were born into misery.

Without the crutches of sorrow, debutant director Irfan Kamal makes entry into the world of the orphaned protagonist Municipality who on one of those regular days of scavenging, theft and loafing with his friends waiting for the next meal, comes across an abandoned child.

Irfan Kamal makes one helluva departure from convention. He cruises the crowded areas of Mumbai with an eye for stinging details. The film hints hectically at the savagely insensitive quality of life lived on the streets.

It's a distressing enlightening journey taken on by the director in a spirit of quest, detection and harmony. Teeming with characters, "Thanks Maa" still preserves a core of stirring stillness at its centre.

Often you think "Thanks Maa" is an idealistic homage to the strong spirit of Mumbai. But then you see the harsh and evil truth about life on the outskirts, as the young brave little hero is almost ill-treated by the warden of the reformatory played by Alok Nath.

"Thanks Maa" is a loving yet cruel look at a city, which claims to have a position for one and all but somehow keeps away from looking after kids who are vulnerable to every type of attack on the lanes.

Quite frequently we look at Mumbai through the eyes of the little boy and his companions as they encounter a gallery of weirdos and wackos... an alcoholic hospital attendant(Raghuvir Yadav), a doped-out cabbie (Sanjay Mishra), a paedophilic reformatory warden(Alok Nath), a cheesy incestuous upper class father (Yateen Karyekar), an imposing eunuch (Jalees Shrawani) who offers to take the baby out of Municipality's shoulder... an offer the boy firmly refuses.

The young hero's shock and dismay when he finally finds the baby's mother are so palpable they reverberate in our hearts long after the film is over.

The movie has its faults, the most blazing being the unvarying struggles to keep the homeless children's story credibly contoured on the busy streets. In many sequences, the young actor Shams can be seen carrying a doll in place of a baby. Also, owing to the inherently dramatic nature of the theme some of the characters and situations lose self-control.

The jagged edges do not undermine the film's unique and thoroughly unorthodox blend of realism and social message. While the veterans pitch in brave cameos that take the narrative forward to its heartbreaking conclusion, it's the child actors who proudly occupy centrestage. All of them are so in-character, you wonder which came first, the slums or the camera!

Some of the editing (Amit Saxena) is rough. But the camerawork (Ajayan Vincent) and backdrop score (Ranjit Barot) add an extra element to this gratifying tale of an orphan who won't let another newly-born suffer his fate. (With Input from Agencies)