A hard-hitting animated short film reminds us that the conversation around Indias migrant crisis is still not over
Tasveer's animated narrator watching television and drinking tea
It's sad, but it's true. Our attention spans have become as fickle as grey clouds that promise to burst open but then disappear without any rain. Think of the time during the lockdown when the country's migrants faced a brick wall in an urban milieu. There was a gamut of emotions that people expressed then, struck by images of their trudge back home on foot. Where are those emotions now? Why did that prick on our collective consciousness not burst our bubble? These answers will come from within. But that won't happen if we treat those migrants like forgotten memories of a short, meaningless romance. The conversation around their crisis needs to keep moving.
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Ashutosh Pathak has taken that step with an animated film he's made, called Tasveer. It's only four minutes long. But it still jolts the consciousness of those whose empathy towards the problem had started receding. Pathak employs the trope of an amorphous everyday man who narrates not just his own voice, but also that of the nation. This person changes from someone who's inquisitive about the crisis, to being shameful, to making a promise that he — and we — will be flag-bearers of change towards a more equal and just society. Pathak tells us, "The simple act of kindness has become a pop image. But it's complex learning."
Ashutosh Pathak
It is. There is no masterclass for empathy. The film has a powerful image of the everyday man, voiced by actor Ali Fazal, going brain-dead in front of news television and dunking a biscuit for too long in a cup of tea. The bits that sink to the bottom are like the dreams that the migrants had when they came to cities, which crashed during the pandemic. Pathak tells us that they had nothing left to lose. "But they still had their honour. They didn't ask for handouts," he says, adding that a certain economist's prediction that there might be food riots fell flat because the aggrieved people didn't take the route of hitting the streets, as people are doing in America about Jacob Blake's shooting at the time of writing.
So, let's not forget. Let's keep that sense of honour alive, keeping this conversation burning like the torch of the Statue of Liberty.
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