THERE is a lone tree. A few floating clouds. A serpentine road and then the house is revealed. The house is a spectacle that is both mute and articulate. A kitchen, a courtyard, windows, rooms, and the entrance. The screen is a landscape of desire, of nostalgia, and of loss. It is a portal.
A single ray of sunshine, that breaks through the old window bars and falls on the floor in the frame, is enough to take me where I have not been in years, to make me see that house again, to feel the loss, to be in that house once more.
Cinema has that power. To take us where we haven’t been, the promise of a house. In watching a film, we gaze at a space we can never occupy but can live in or have lived in. In Achal Mishra’s Gamak Ghar, which was released in 2019, the house is the protagonist. The house hasn’t been scanned and it is here that we experience the tenuousness of property relations and through it, the story of migration, of aspiration, and of loss.
The film is set in Mishra’s ancestral village, Madhopur, in Darbhanga and is about the house that his grandfather built in the 1950s. A structure becomes home with presence and this real, lived-in space was where fiction intersected with the real and then, with my own story.
It is real and, in its realness, it contains a thousand other such homes. Like memory, which can’t be created. It is both real and surreal. The house inspires, it acts and it disintegrates. I wonder if the house would be the same if it were made up of footage and insertions. Would I then enter it the way I did?
Bu hikaye Outlook dergisinin January 01, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Outlook dergisinin January 01, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Soft Ruins
'Soft Ruins' is a chapter within the long-term ongoing project \"When Spring Never Comes\", an expansive exploration of memory, identity and displacement in the aftermath of exile within contemporary global politics. It reflects on how the journey as an asylum seeker in Europe mirrors the instability and threats of life under dictatorship, amidst rising right-wing movements and shifting power dynamics, where both certainty and identity are redefined
Building Beyond Homes: Provident Housing's Transformative Approach
Provident Housing leads in crafting thoughtfully designed homes that cater to modern homebuyers' evolving needs. With a focus on timely delivery, sustainability, and innovative, customer-centric solutions, the company sets new benchmarks. In this exclusive interview, Mallanna Sasalu, CEO of Provident Housing, shares insights into the company's strategies, upcoming projects, and vision for India's housing future.
Syria Speaks
A Syrian graffiti artist-activist's tale of living through bombings, gunshots and displacement
The Burdened
Yemen, once a beautiful land identified with the Queen of Sheba, is now one of the worst ongoing humanitarian disasters of modern times
Sculpting In Time
Documentaries such as Intercepted and Songs of Slow Burning Earth grapple with the Russian occupation beyond displays of desolation
The Story Won't Die
Is Israel's triumphalism over its land grab in Syria realistic? The hard reality is-Israel now has Al-Qaeda as a next-door neighbour
Against the Loveless World
In times of war, love exists as a profound act of defiance
Soul of My Soul
What does it mean to continue to create art during a genocide?
in Dancing the Glory of Monsters
By humanising the stories of those affected by war, poverty and displacement, Buuma hopes to foster empathy and inspire action
All the President's Men
Co-author of All The President's Men and one of the two Washington Post journalists (the other was Carl Berntstein) who broke the Watergate scandal that brought down the President Richard Nixon administration in the United States in 1974, Bob Woodward's recent book War was on top of The New York Times Bestseller list, even above John Grisham.
