BOM

In \i BOM\i0 , director Amlan Datta makes a number of visits to his adoptive family in Malana, a remote mountain village near the border with Tibet. In the past, things were just fine there, thanks to divine jurisprudence and a village council that could only make decisions unanimously. As a result, no one ever suffered at the hands of a majority or the law of the strongest. According to one resident, "Our system was good enough. It was perfect." But ever since the Republic of India established democracy throughout the country, things are changing, and many feel not for the better. The traditional cultivation of cannabis is now illegal, and the goat pastures must make way for a dam. Outsiders suggest tourism and pea farming as alternative sources of income, but given the village's location and the potential profit, this doesn't seem all that realistic. In the words of another villager, "Now we've become slaves to India." Datta takes one of his brothers to the capital to see the parliament building, the heart of the democratic system that is destroying the harmony in his village. Meanwhile, daily life goes on in Malana, with covert cannabis cultivation, a wedding, elections, feasts for the gods, a fire, a strike, but most of all an infectious sense of humor.