The passage through immigration feels like as if I’ve crawled through dirt. The tone of the questions asked, the officer putting you under pressure so that you might either lose your temper or make a mistake. It takes away the fun from traveling, this trial of words. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth and your skin begins to feel dirty. You feel as if you have done some wrong by coming to this country. The chance of birth determines the ease of arrival in the developed world.

In the dim neon light everyone seems sulky. Grim looks as people hurry with little molehills of suitcases; black, brown, red and green. A limo turns up suddenly. It feels as out of place as an elephant would on the streets of New York. White coaches turn into the bays and people scurry like disturbed ants. The wind carries with it the smell of rain, a cold and unhappy rain.

The bus arrives. It’s arrival is greeted by a bugle of horns from the other vehicles hunkered down in their respective bays. I wonder at all the journeys these buses might have undertaken. How many stories can they tell for every kilometer they have traveled? What horrible accidents have they witnessed? How many roads have their tires tasted? Does the petrol they drink ever leave behind a memory? A memory of ignition and constant burn?

The world is dark around me with only a small light overhead to guide my fingers. The road stretches on to the blind horizon like a coiled snake waiting to strike at those who threaten it.

I like riding through cities after midnight. There is a certain beauty to urban places when the roads are all but empty and the world rests in the shadows. The quiet wash of endless neon lights fighting the all encroaching darkness. The sensual swoosh of an occasional car passing by. The melancholic moodiness of roads stretching to the horizon. The wind surfing through my hair. The sudden rush of adrenalin racing through my veins in tune with the acceleration of the metal beast underneath.

Billboards, shining like beacons, scream overhead their neat middle-class dreams. The soft underbelly of the city is alive and kicking. The radium jackets of the night sweepers flashing here and there. A police car on the horizon on a routine patrol. And the utter stillness. It is this stillness of the night that makes me roam the roads. The stillness of a night at peace with itself. The stillness of sudden inactivity, a lull awaiting new chaos on the morn. The time between 12 am and 5 am trickles away like a light shower on a summer evening.

I slip in and out of unfamiliar streets, hit the big roads and then disappear into forgotten side-streets. I overtake the occasional vehicle on the road with supreme ease. As I pass a vehicle the guy in/on it nods at me. A polite acknowledgement of another person seeking the same moonshine. I look up. Ah, there he is! The guardian of the night in all his pockmarked handsomeness. His delicate light hiding more than it reveals.

But I saved the best for the last. The addas, the places only special locals know. The joints where lonely poets go to roost and welcome dawn with a hot cup of sweet chai.

A tropical sun, but without the burning heat, has come calling. I’m taken back in time to hot afternoons; of sweat drenched foreheads, of delicious mangoes, of the sudden stillness after regular electricity cuts, and the beautiful feeling of cool air on hot skin. I breathe in the thick memories of summers bygone, intoxicating in their all-enveloping glory.

Ah, I remember that strand; a sultry Sunday when I roamed through the book market in Abids and found, to my utter delight, that my doors of perception had been cleansed. Here is another memory, of sitting for an entrance exam on a ferocious afternoon in May, half suffering from sunstroke, the questions looming up from the paper and forming surreal shapes. Streaking through my senses, a cool summer morning, the way she felt in my arms among the rocks, the dream like union of hesitant lips, the heavenly vision of half-naked flesh below me and then walking back hand in hand, hesitating to open my mouth and shatter the unbelievable dream. Here is another fragment; a day spent tramping through the hot roads of Pune but with the welcome relief of frequent Neera drinking stops. Suddenly, I taste that chilled beer again traveling down my throat, cold and exciting in a sleepy Delhi fast food joint. And how can I forget the gentle lapping of the waves as I sat on the beach and consumed a book on a lazy Goan afternoon.

I remember escaping in to the icy relief of air-conditioned libraries, of the air hanging still like a guillotine at 1 pm, of mid day roads swept clean of people, of juicy watermelons melting in my mouth, of sweaty bed sheets and howling Westerly winds. An endless succession of summers unfolding behind my eyes.

And there are words as well, from half-forgotten conversations, unwaveringly similar, time after time.

“Hey, who is getting the snacks?”

“Don’t you dare forget the green peas, fucker!”

“Oh boy this is life! Chilled beer hitting the spot, tasty snacks and the whole evening stretching away before you like an empty runway.”

“…Julio and Romiet…shit…damn…I mean Romeo and Juliet of course…cut it out you dickheads, I’m not drunk!”

Can you talk in images? Can you paint the colors of my land in three dimensions? Can you evoke the smells of forgotten memories? Can you differentiate the manifold tastes of an entire ethos? Swades, the film, did and does that for me. Arguably, the best film to come out of the Indian mainstream cinema in recent times.

From the beginning to the end, it is filled with profound dialogues, scintillating and soulful music, brilliant performances and vibrant cinematography. It brings to life the true India; the many inconsistencies, the innumerable inequities, the uncountable hurdles, the heartbreaking poverty, the heady feelings, the wonderful warmth, the sensual colors, and the sense of being and belonging.

Each time I see it, it is as if I’m seeing it for the first time. Each time I share the joy, sadness, love and laughter of real people in a real film. Each time I miss the many things I’ve left behind. Each time I yearn for a land that is far away yet makes my heart shed a thousand tears. Each time I remember what I gave up in search for material want and worldly knowledge.

Almost every frame is a study in perfection. The film is full of iconic images, the boy selling water at the train station, the lead character traveling in a boat, the language of love spoken solely through the eyes of the actor and actress, the electric bulb lighting up the face of a half-blind woman, the nostalgia for one’s own country told through one heart wrenchingly beautiful and powerful song, and how can one forget the sheer beauty of the music lending an extra dimension to all the scenes mentioned and more.

Every Indian should, no, must see this film. And not just an Indian, anyone wanting to experience what it is to be an Indian and what she is at the core needs to see it. Don’t give in to the clichés of cows, beggars and poverty. India is justly more than the sum of these parts. India is indeed the crucible of all civilization as someone rightly said.

This film is worthy of a hundred awards. I bow to the courage of the director to make such a film, a film which did not appeal to an audience deadened into accepting overacted melodramas, disconnected dramas and unrealistic love stories. I salute the near genius of the music director and I congratulate the visual poetry of the cinematographer and production designer. I hope this will bring in a revolution in mainstream films and mark the beginning of an alternate approach to film making. A style of film making that revels in telling a story and yet does not shirk from pointing out the truth, disguising hard reality or including a message.

We need more people like Mohan Bhargava. We need more dreamers like him who have the courage to fashion a new India, an India worthy of admiration, an India leading the world again, taking her rightful space at civilization’s forefront. To paraphrase Rabindranath Tagore, let her become a teardrop on the cheek of eternity.