ALT EFF 2024| Miles Away Examines Compulsions Of Migrant Bonded Labourers

Spanning a couple of months between the winter of 2021 and summer of 2022, Megha Acharya바카라�s Miles Away (Meelon Dur) dovetails everyday stories of three female migrant brick workers바카라�Gaura, Keshkali and Ramsakhi바카라�and their families. It articulates their anguish with subtle, poignant force, bringing their woes and resilience to the fore.

As the opening footnote states, Bundelkhand records the highest number of migrations in the country. In an eight-month spell, brick makers resettle close to kilns in the region. They hope to get the mountain of accumulated debt off their backs, only to get sucked into it again and again in a vicious cycle. Acharya focuses her gaze on the wives and daughters, working day in and day out at the kilns. The sons, on the other hand, are unreliable and seek to while away time just because they can; their fathers lend them leeway to be flighty바카라�a privilege denied to the girls.

The film folds a community of women seeking refuge and comfort in each other. They are all confronted with the hard grind of reality. Yet, each finds a sliver of happiness and fleeting hope in the state of forced togetherness. The kilns are a brutal, mercilessly demanding place. The families put up in makeshift aluminium tin shelters, which are heavily precarious. Come torrential rainfall, they stand the risk of collapse. A recent such incident haunts the families. But there are no alternatives. Holed up for months on end together, the men and women try to reinstate their best bets at a reasonably safe life. For women, this unconventional arrangement of living바카라�away from the prying gaze of parents and in-laws바카라�also offers freedom to some degree. They talk giddily about being able to celebrate a festival like Holi without judgement and scrutiny tailing them. Here, they can be casual and livelier than what바카라�s permitted within the ambit of their marital homes. The film expectedly bursts with bleakness and habitual tragedy. But Acharya intersperses these instances with lovely, light moments like a group of women sharing a laugh after wrapping a day바카라�s work.

Miles Away opens with the perspective of three families who migrated to the kilns. But it sweeps beyond that바카라�burning into a clear-eyed, unsentimental examination of material circumstances of anyone who바카라�s trapped in endless migration. Daytime work is gruelling. The film centres the careful intricacies of brick-making바카라�rows and rows of them arranged with precision. Bodies are almost bent under fatigue and bruises.The tempestuous whims of the rain gods are disruptive, pushing the migrants into a chasm of uncertainty. As a result, they get cornered into drawn-out pockets of coerced idleness. They have to wait and wait till the skies clear and they can get back to work. Many nights are spent in pitch dark, with long power cuts.

The yoke of debt is immense, crushing, dehumanising. It doesn바카라�t let the families pursue functional lives with regular aspirations. Kids바카라� education gets stalled. Simple acts of joy바카라�like buying a new pair of bangles바카라�have to be severely controlled and balanced against basic sustenance. Even the kiln owner hasn바카라�t got the money to settle the workers바카라� dues, choosing instead to swindle them.

바카라�Every year you decide not to return to the kiln,바카라� one of the workers says. But loans pile up barely few days upon their return home. Weekly dues for groceries shoot up. Home is also a place where the full weight of caste oppression crashes on them. Winding up within an hour, Miles Away doesn바카라�t have the bandwidth to look through that angle, mentioning it by way of a passing glance. Nevertheless, while seasons shift and journeys between home and kilns are made, Acharya바카라�s documentary-as-snapshot encompasses a web of systemic deprivation and exploitation.

Miles Away screened at ALT EFF (All Living Things Environmental Film Festival) 2024 and won as the Best Indian Feature of this Edition.