Gaar

Following a freak hailstorm in Central India’s Narmada Valley, Gaar follows the lives of the regions’s embattled farmers. With low average rainfall and hard rock geology, the valley has minimal groundwater levels, while peak summer temperatures soar to 48C. The farmers must thus battle for survival—pitched against the vagaries of climate change—and are more often than not forced to migrate to distant towns and cities. There they work as menial labourers, in fields and on construction sites, under deplorable conditions. Shobhit Jain’s documentary paints a harrowing portrait of the migrants’ precarious and vulnerable lives on the margins of urban society.