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Kathmandu Saturday October 06, 2001 Ashwin 20, 2058.
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Audience stick to soul-searching movies
By Tashi Dolma Thinley
KATHMANDU, Oct 5 - The film My Migrant Soul traces the saga of a simple young
man called Shahjahan Babu in Bangladesh, who is full of hope and energy to go abroad and
earn some money for his mother, sister and her kids. Babu was in his ‘seventh
heaven’ when two men "agents" arranged him a visa for Malaysia. He pays a
hefty amount to these people who also promised him jobs in the hotel.
The spirited Babu leaves for Malaysia in search of a better life but Babu
quickly found out that his status had been reduced to that of a slave, with long working
hours, subsistence wage and no way out. In a posthumous account left behind for the world,
Babu recounts his plight as a migrant worker. He works from 7 in the morning to 12 in the
midnight in construction and heavy machinery works. He and his Bangladeshi friends are
constantly in search of work, regardless of whether it is an easy one or not. To go back
home or to the police posed impossible as they have no documents and had come under forged
passports.
The story narrates his saga of hope striping off a poor man’s dream to
earn a livelihood but he continues to struggle against that backdrop. Finally, he sends a
recorded message sharing his hopes, disillusions and fears in an audiotape to his family.
In a bid to return home, Babu dies in a concentration camp in Malaysia.
My Migrant Soul directed by Yasmin Kabir who is an independent filmmaker
based in Bangladesh, grips audience in this one man’s dreams that crumble into
despair. The director has done a great job in focussing on just one person but telling the
story of thousands, silently. The film not only makes for a memorable cinematic experience
but also captures the emotional element throughout the movie.
One of the films screened today was a different one that can take you to a
long nice drive along the highway of India. This movie Sher-e-Punjab, is a story about
truckers at the roadside dhaba at the National Highway No 8 which is one of the main
thoroughfare that link Ahmedabad with the rest of India. Trucks ply day and night on the
highway, carrying goods to and from places as far as Bombay, Bangalore and Punjab. Along
the highway are cheap hotels called dhabas where these truckers halt, get refreshed and
move on. Just before the city border is one hotel called Sher-e Punjab. Truckers, mostly
Punjabis stop here, unload their goods in the nearby godowns, take a new load and set off
again.
This film captures moments in the lives of three men and their dhaba and
clears the famous myth of the grand lives of truckers. Directed by Rahul Das, a student at
the National Institute of Design (NID), the film depicts not saga or turmoil but the
truckers getting laid off, thus regretting their childhood dream of driving a truck.
She Wants To Talk To You is a recording of three 13-year-old Nepali girls on
what it means to be a girl, marriage, friendship and God. Their views inspire three Nepali
women living in the United States to reflect on their personal quest and struggle for
freedom. This film which had a strong subject,however, failed to give the audience what
they expected. The film neither portrayed their lives in America nor in Nepal but
constantly goes back to their childhood to describe gender inequality.
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