Boong

In a country that is so diverse that there is a new language, a new cuisine, a new landscape, a new cultural ethos, and even a new set of rules and regulations every 100-200 kilometres, perspective is everything. That is why it feels futile to try to make sense of the things that are ‘different.’ Why not just embrace the vibrance of diversity without trying to burden it with the monotony of uniformity? When Lakshmipriya Devi’s Boong presents us with her view of Manipur, it doesn’t ask us to analyse the differences, but to appreciate the similarities. And the best way to do it is to tell a film through the eyes of a boy, who might be corrupted by the world around him, but he has the excuse of saying, “But I didn’t know better.”

Boong tells the story of little Brojendro “Boong” Singh (Gugun Kipgen), a naughty Manipuri kid from Imphal who sets out to search for his absent father in the bordertown of Moreh. It’s been years since his dad left home, phone calls have stopped being returned, but young Boong wants to surprise his single mother Mandakini (Bala Hijam) with the ‘gift’ of the man’s return. He leaves him voice messages to no avail. Their village mysteriously receives news of the man’s death, but Mandakini refuses to believe it. Boong notices her distress, so his journey with best friend Raju (Angom Sanamatum) into the unknown — into neighbouring Myanmar, even — is framed as a bittersweet Home Alone-coded adventure. The two boys reach their destination by hiding in a wreath next to the corpse of a friend’s grandfather in a hearse.

Aijaz Khan’s Hamid and Danish Renzu’s Half Widow are the names that easily come to my mind when it comes to movies about husbands going missing. But both the aforementioned films have the backdrop of the political crisis in Kashmir. This is where filmmaker Lakshmipriya Devi’s Manipuri movie Boong stands apart. It is more of a personal story of a boy whose father goes missing not due to any political tensions.