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When he moved from India to the U.K. in 1965 to advance his medical career, Dr. Y.P. Suri brought an 8mm film camera and a reel-to-reel tape recorder, leaving another one behind for his relatives. He saw it as the best way to keep in touch in an age when international mail and poor phone connections were the only alternatives. The cameras and tape machines got plenty of use, judging from his daughter's 2005 documentary, I for India, which proves Y.P. was even smarter than he knew. Using the nearly 40 years worth of archives, his daughter has made a touching and insightful film about nothing less than a family's change of identity.
Y.P. says early in the film that he was not the only one to leave India in the mid-Sixties and not the only one who believed in "the myth of return." He kept that faith for many years, talking of the foreign work as a temporary job but sadly reporting the family would have to stay a little longer. Much of the soundtrack comes from the exchanged tapes, filled with emotionally charged voices. After a few years, Y.P. says he worries about the family becoming "misfits for our home." Clearly, this is only part of the story, as Y.P. finds professional success and his daughters grow up accustomed to English social life. In the Eighties, when they finally try moving back to India, it proves a letdown for all of them and they return to Darlington after a few months "to get on with our lives." They have become Britons, despite encountering racism and the awkwardness of being treated as exotic outsiders.
In addition to telling a moving story, I for India is a good object lesson in international migration. Border-crossings usually take place as part of an extended-family strategy based on emotional and cultural concerns as well as economic considerations. These strategies may or may not match the agendas of governments or societies, either the American concept of permanent migration into a melting pot or the typical European idea of temporary labor without assimilation. all these issues come up in the Suris' story.
Despite what decades of 8mm films would seem to promise, Sandhya Suri's film isn't really a visual feast. The old footage just enriches the movie rather than forming its backbone. Darlington, England, is dark and monochromatic in footage of the British-born Suri children playing in the snow and prim nurses sipping drinks at a hospital Christmas party. It seems empty next to vivid shots of festivals in India. But the filmmaker remains in the present day for a good portion of the film, with interviews and family scenes that nevertheless are often fascinating to watch. Some news footage and what seem to be re-enactments are also mixed in, and the movie might have benefitted from better labeling of the clips or clearer distinctions between them. But at the heart of this documentary is a great story of what becomes of people despite all their plans and assumptions. And in the end, that thread leads to a well-observed twist that provides a view into the future and makes the rest of the story even more poignant.