My Home is in the Hills

Where are you from? It’s a question I’ve been asked all my life. We like to slot people into boxes labelled by regions, caste, colour and creed. The backlash against migrants has been a constant threat to the lives of millions of Indians who’ve migrated for want of jobs, education, and healthcare. My parents lived that life. Having grown up in beautiful sylvan valleys in the Himalayas, they migrated to Mumbai in hopes of a better life. They lived in a tin-foil shanty where I was born. My mom, fought off goons who’d come to demolish the shanty even as my father worked as a daily wage labourer trying to make ends meet.

The film is an ode to these people – the migrants, my parents and their generation. I want to tell their story – who they were, how they lived, and why they migrated – before they become labelled as migrants. I do not want to romanticize the past nor paint a spotless picture of life in a village. I intend to bring alive the questions and doubts that those who migrate struggle with before they make the decision.

My goal is to convey the confusion and sadness that comes with leaving one’s home for an uncertain future in a strange, distant land. I want to paint a picture of the Himalayan village life as it exists today in the last throes of its existence before it is engulfed by the ghost of migration. Because the protagonist is mischievous, the film will be a comedy, albeit one tinged with poignancy, especially as the film heads towards the climax. Children remain our only hope and by making a film that speaks to them while telling the story of a young migrant their age, I hope to dissolve the boundaries that continue to separate us. Even if it can convince only one kid to choose empathy and understanding over hatred for the other, my job would’ve been done.

A native of the Indian Himalayan region of Kumaon, bordering Nepal and Tibet, ARUN FULARA wants to bring stories from the region to the wider world. His recent short, Shera, is a story of two young friends and their fascination with the leopard that lives around their Himalayan village is the first of those stories. His debut feature – My Home is in the Hills – a magical realism-tinged coming-of-age drama in the context of migration was part of NFDC Film Bazaar’s Co-Production Market (2021) and is in development. His short films Sunday (2020) and My Mother's Girlfriend (2021) have travelled to 130+ festivals around the world. Between them, they’ve won over a dozen awards including awards at REELING LGBTQ+ International Film Festival (2021) and IDSFFK (2021). His documentary, Kashnoli, about an old couple surviving a harsh winter in their isolated home in a Himalayan village, is in post-production. He’s previously assisted filmmaker Devashish Makhija on acclaimed films like Ajji and Bhonsle.