On the hot and crowded streets of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), three thousand pickpockets ply their trade every day, three hundred of them circulating through police custody at any given time. JOURNALS OF A WILY SCHOOL takes viewers inside the world of these petty thieves and the detectives who doggedly pursue them, day in and day out. With unprecedented access, first-time director Sudeshna Bose follows a young and talented pickpocket named Azad Jalaluddin, revealing in cinema verit? style the many layers of his life. The eldest of five children, the 22-year-old lives with his family. While his sisters go to school and his father works in the wholesale fish trade, Azad spends his days picking pockets, using drugs and binging on Bollywood films. His mystified father voices frustration over the wayward son who fancies himself a don and compares himself to the stars of the big screen.
