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A Refugee Film - Way back Home Journey to a lost land after 50 years
Supriyo Sen has created a film Way Back Home. A Refugee Film. A film on
refugees. Two central characters of the film are Supriyo’s mother and
father. They are partition refugees from East Pakistan. After spending a
considerable period in West Bengal as refugees Supriyo’s parents made a
journey to the place they had left, the home they were forced to leave
during partition. In their way back home, Supriyo followed them with his
camera.
Can we call it a Refugee Film, Supriyo was asked. Yes. The film has
narrated the history of refugees. Supriyo’s father describes the
politics, the violence, the cruelty, the magnitude of migration. Supriyo
has used old newsreel to juxtapose his father’s description of history.
His mother has touched upon another layer. She recalls departing from
her girlhood’s surroundings, her friends, her relatives. The
displacement physically and mentally. The making of refugee politically,
geographically, physically, mentally.
Supriyo’s parents it seems have accepted or have been forced to accept
their refugee status geographically, physically, & yet they have not
done so mentally.
In their mind, in their memories, they have a Home, across the border,
in a foreign state. They have got a state but their Desh (country) is
still there.
The existence of a Desh, the migration from one’s own Desh to another
State as refugee, the memory of a Home in Desh survives in the mental
spectrum. These have been transmitted to Supriyo from his parents
through narration over a long period of time. Supriyo subconsciously
thinks of himself, as a refugee, a second-generation refugee.
His film is not only a film on two refugees, his parents, it is a film
on another refugee, Supriyo himself, he tells us.
Supriyo tells us, He realises through the refugee existence of his
parents, that the refugees were deprived, not welcomed by the host
country government, not accepted by the mainstream members of the host
society, The refugees have suffered from a sense of inferiority in their
inner world and had expressed a sense of aggression in their outer
world. They had lost their language, their culture, their festivals
specific to their own Desh.
Supriyo upholds the cause of the refugee. He makes a point that they are
one among us. The refugees here now are trying to forget their refugee
identity. They have resettled, re-established themselves geographically,
economically, culturally, politically. Supriyo disagrees.
Supriyo’s disagreement is his film. After living more than fifty years
in this State, his parents make a journey, a way back, to replace
themselves in their Desh, to relocate themselves in their Home, to
rearrange their memory in reality.
Supriyo’s film tells us his parent’s Desh has changed, their Home now
belongs to some one else, their memories have no correspondence to the
present reality. They are outsiders. They have been transformed.
Supriyo makes a point through his film that once you have lost your
Home, your Desh, you have lost it forever. Once you are a refugee, you
cannot make a way back. Supriyo’s film is perhaps an answer to the
official question: Should the refugees go back to their home country?
We express our anxiety. Is it wise making a film like this? Supriyo
answers: Yes. He says partition refugee, as a subject is dangerous to
remember but difficult to avoid. One should face it. It may be a tight
rope walking or a slippery path. Yet one should walk.
One should make a journey to construct a history of partition refugee,
one should understand the process of becoming refugee due to a political
design, and one should create a film on refugees. Not for retaliation or
revenge. But to say: no more refugees.
A State may be planned by a group of people but without displacing other
groups from their Home. It needs to be done without making refugees says
Supriyo. He images a world without refugees. His imagination has been
translated in his film: Way Back Home
(This text is based on a discussion between Supriyo Sen, Rajasri
Mukhopadhyay, Anup Dhar and Subhendu Dasgupta)
By Subhendu Dasgupta
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