Afterthoughts on Leaving Home

The crowd in the café was a hybrid of hungry children, cool youngsters, concerned parents and calm elderly. They knew what they had signed up for when they had decided to attend the second documentary screening by Root Reel, in association with Mocha Film Club. Of course, anyone who comes to see a documentary titled ‘Leaving Home’ more or less takes for granted what it’s going to be about – people leaving home, leaving comfort zones – the usual inspiration stuff.

Such a film is going to tell you about the chance manner in which a motley group of people came together to form a music band. Four people who had almost prodigious talent and imagination with one or more musical instruments. Four people who brought together their individual personalities and quirks to blend into a juggernaut of a band named Indian Ocean. Four people with such music and song that no one can recreate covers of. Four people named Sushmit, Asheem, Rahul and Amit.

Such a film is going to trace the musical journey of Indian Ocean across twenty years, the milestones being set by their best numbers. One realises then why a name like Indian Ocean is so apt for music that is a confluence of Hindustani, Carnatic, jazz and rock. The band has drawn its inspiration from many sources – Bengali boatsmen, tribals at the Narmada Bachao Andolan, parents who loved the Kashmiri Sufi tradition, Sant Kabir and an inebriated teacher are just muses.

Such a film is going to state the timeless quality of their songs. They were a local hit when they started two decades ago, and still continue to be across nations and generations. They were beautiful when no one knew them and they were beautiful when people begged them. A group that functions leaderless, a song that is never released until perfected – these were men who made music from within.

However, such a film, you see, is also going to show you how not to plan a career. How not to study at school and disgust your mother by telling her that you wish to focus on that one thing that makes sense in life – music. How to go to Cornell University and call it ‘a paid vacation’. How to lose the money you invested in a factory, even while your family is counting on you. How to live through your thirties knowing there no steady source of income. How not to have an agenda and survive the random destiny dictated by the entertainment business. How not to aspire for money or position. How to live through scepticism, regret and failure.

How to believe. And how to believe, after you left home.

Of course, one knows what such a documentary is going to be about. Which is why a woman in the audience told the director Jaideep Varma that this was the sixth time that she was watching this movie and every screening felt like the first time. And she, like many of us, will ask for an encore after every screening and we all know why.

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