In 1965 Yash Pal Suri left India for the U.K. The first thing he does on his arrival in England is to buy 2 Super 8 cameras, 2 projectors and 2 reel to reel recorders. One set of equipment he sends to his family in India, the other he keeps for himself. For forty years he uses it to share his new life abroad with those back home - images of snow, miniskirted ladies dancing bare-legged, the first trip to an English supermarket - his taped thoughts and observations providing a unique chronicle of the eccentricities of his new English hosts. Back in India, his relatives in turn, respond with their own ‘cine-letters’ telling tales of weddings, festivals and village life.

As time passes and the planned return to India becomes an increasingly remote possibility, the joy and curiosity of the early exchanges give way to the darker reality of alienation, racism and a family falling apart.

A bitter-sweet time capsule of alienation, discovery, racism and belonging, “I for India” is a chronicle of immigration in sixties Britain and beyond, seen through the eyes of one Asian family and their movie camera.

Nearly a year ago, I had put up a blog-post about the documentary film “I for India.” Thanks to Filmiholic and her TiVo, I’ve now had a chance to watch the film. It’s wonderful and I recommend it highly. The idea of the exchanged newsreels had drawn me to the film, and I was especially interested in seeing the England, as well as India, of my parents’ generation. What I was not prepared for, and which blew me away, was the film-maker Sandhya Suri’s portrait of her father, and of his sense of dividedness, and of what happens when nostalgia turns sour.