I finally got around to watching Homebound on Netflix. While I had read the basic story, I delayed watching because I like my movies to be fun, transport me to a different world, and have happy endings (generally). From what I had read, Homebound was supposed to be gritty, a mirror on reality, and perhaps not have the type of ending I liked. But its also not often that an Indian movie makes it an Oscar top 15 longlist. And so, one evening in December, I watched it. (A few spoilers ahead.)
It was excellent, of course. It gave glimpses of Indias that we children of cities don’t see and prefer not to see – rural India, where caste and religion are mixed up in life’s regular interactions. It highlighted the harsh truth about government jobs and why they are so sought after (“743 applications for 1 State police constable opening”) and how lives are put on hold as the exams are taken and results anxiously awaited – sometimes endlessly. For the young, there seem to be no alternatives than government jobs or the toil as a construction worker. In so many ways, it captures India’s failure to industrialise except in pockets.
It is the first movie I have seen which brought home the reality of the impact of the sudden Covid lockdown. Unlock India was one of my first posts when I restarted the blog in April 2020. Homebound brought to vivid life the reality of what the lockdown did to the lives of migrants who had gone to cities to make better lives for themselves and their families. We sheltered at our homes in cities. For millions who were forced to walk back home under the hot summer sun of April and May through the heartland, it was the shattering of many a dream.
Homebound is the rare ‘art’ movie that gets made. It wasn’t a commercial success. But it has been a success in film festivals and on OTT. I sincerely hope it can win an Oscar. More film-makers need to show us the 80% India that we don’t like to see. The words I wrote in April 2020 still echo true: “The immediate unlocking of India so we can get back to economic activity must only be the start. We need to do much more – fight for our freedom so we can get on the path to prosperity. For this, we need to let markets work without government intervention – we are all capable of making the right decisions on our own and that is the only path to prosperity. We need to unlock the $20 trillion of wealth that is being controlled by the government in India – land, minerals and public sector undertakings. If this wealth is returned to the people, they can each chart out their own path going forward.”
