Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy had scripted and canned Oscar-acclaimed shots of a Mumbai slum boy’s fictional journey to millionairedom last year. Another British crew of Wilder Films—considerably smaller, and specialising in sports campaign films—plucked Mangesh Chavan, a 13-year-old rugger from the Ambedkar Nagar slums of Cuffe Parade, as the face of aspiration and rugby’s wide reach in Asia for their promo-presentation as the sport pushed for a spot in the Olympics at a special screening for the International Olympic Committee Executive Council at Lausanne on Monday.

Chavan, an athletic, lanky fly-half of the junior Magic Bus team was thus featured alongside Rugby 7s stars: Springboks winger Bryan Habana, Samoan fly-half Lolo Lui, New Zealand Sevens skipper DJ Forbes besides English legends—ex-captain Lawrence Dallaglio and Wasps and England full-back Danny Cipriani—in rugby’s biggest hard-sell for a place in the 2016 Olympics, competing with six other sports for two available spots.

The Class 7 student of Marwari Commercial HS, one among six children of a humble fisherman, knows nothing about IRB President Bernard Leppatest and lesser still of rugby’s four visits to the Olympics in 1900, ‘08, ‘20 and ‘24 before it was ommitted from the grand sporting movement. But Chavan will find his frames happily juxtaposed alongside rugby’s marquee moments like Nelson Mandela presenting the William Webb Ellis Cup to South African captain Francois Pienaar and the All Black’s venerated Haka.

An image of Chavan scoring a dramatic try along the Bombay Gymkhana touchline in a colts game, dissolving into a grand montage of an Olympic stadium will be the lasting impression that scores of global delegates of the IOC will take home when they tick mark or cross out rugby. “It aimed to show how wide the the sport has spread beyond traditional lands like England, Australia and South Africa,” said Wilder Films executive producer Richard Batty from London. “There was an element of convenience in choosing India, because we’ve shot there before and find it a very exciting, vibrant place. Also, there’s a good level of cinema experience in India. Except for the director, producer and cameraman, the rest of the crew was Indian,” he added.

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