Leaving Home

In Leaving Home, filmmaker Robert Richter follows American anthropologist J. Michael Mahar, who returns to India to visit the rural village of Rankhandi, where he lived for two years, starting in 1954. On this trip back, Mahar tracks what has and hasn't changed. Archival footage depicts the agrarian world Mahar witnessed in the 1950s, a way of life that continues today, except that modernization now allows the villagers access to electricity and running water and the means to harvest sugar cane more effectively. Mahar concentrates on high school-age Renu and her extended family, speaking freely with the men, but taking his leave when translator Nishu Varma interviews the women, since his presence would not be considered appropriate. While men can come and go at will, women stay at home to cook, clean, and look after the children. Women can ride bikes in private, but not in public, nor can they operate their own businesses. Renu tells Varma that she wants to teach Sanskrit, but her future husband will have the final say. As her uncle puts it, "Choice doesn't exist here." In town, Mahar finds that boys and girls share classrooms, but girls tend to finish school around 10th grade, because further education would complicate their search for a spouse, since the man should be better educated than the wife. Mahar also visits the lower-caste region, noting that the Untouchables enjoy a more self-sufficient existence than in years past. Mostly, what Mahar finds is a village in flux—not totally in the Dark Ages, but far from what most Westerners would consider modern enlightenment. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)