Opinion From ‘Paar’ to ‘Homebound’, films that tell difficult truths about migrant lives

In Paar, Naurangia (Naseeruddin Shah) and Rama (Shabana Azmi) are forced to flee their village because their demand for legal wages irks the village landlord, who then inflicts violence on them. They head to Kolkata, where they feel they can be assured of a job. However, the constant influx of migrant labourers means there are not as many jobs for the taking. Naurangia helplessly watches the crowd of workers who line up each day in the hope of getting daily work at a factory. Workers constantly need to compete with each other in order to earn the daily wage.

As they grow increasingly desperate, they are met with indifference and irritation from the white-collar workers at the mill. One of them, annoyed by Naurangia’s pleas, tells him, “You all don’t have anything to do, and you come to Calcutta for work. How am I responsible for giving you a job?” The spite and condescension are clear in his tone, even as he takes pity on them to hand him a two-rupee note. Eventually, the couple decides to try and earn enough money to go back to their village, so they take on a job guiding a herd of pigs across a river. The irony of this situation is that Naurangia got the job because of his “impure” caste: The same stigma which had led to the violence that forced him to leave his village.

Paar is not a story of migrants driven to the city by ambition. The emotion that echoes through the film is Naurangia’s deep yearning to return to their village. While getting on the train to Kolkata, he tells his wife they should go back now that the government has intervened in the violence in his village.

Forty years on, another heart-wrenching story about what migrant workers endure finds a place in Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound. Two friends migrate to Surat from their village to work in a garment mill — one of them has failed to land a coveted government job even after qualifying for it, while the other feels forced to give up his employment because of the constant humiliation he is subjected to. Their relentless battle is not just for survival; it is a desperate attempt to send money back home.

Homebound effectively paints a picture of the struggle of migrant workers: The agonising account of two people out of the millions whose stories and lives are often condensed to mere numbers and statistics. At a time of rising intolerance against migrants over the language they speak, the caste they belong to, and the damage to the native culture that they allegedly cause, it is important to remember that the working class never migrates by choice.

Recently, a migrant worker from West Bengal, Mostafa Kamal Sheikh was detained in Maharashtra and driven across the border into Bangladesh, because he was suspected of being a Bangladeshi. However, despite these conditions, he has to go back to his job. A report in The Indian Express (‘Driven out like cattle’: Migrant workers from Bengal caught in crackdown) quotes him as saying, “There is money there. More than double of what we can earn anywhere in West Bengal. We work and stay in hovels in Mumbai, Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana so that our families back home can stay in concrete homes, so that our children can go to good schools and get private tuitions.”

Paar and Homebound are difficult films to watch. With the realistic performances delivered by the actors and the deft storytelling, they remind us of the uncomfortable reality that is all around us, and which we shove to the back of our minds.

The writer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Christ University, Bangalore