New Delhi, Dec. 21 -- I am glad that Homebound's shortlisting for an Oscar nomination gives me an opportunity to say something tangential. Modern poverty, even if it comes with a smartphone, is worse than ancient poverty.

The film, directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, and written by him with Shreedhar Dubey and Varun Grover, shows two young men trying to escape poverty through the processes that India tells its young will save them.

They decide to apply for a police job; they see great hordes who want the same thing. Still, it is a path, and the two friends feel that if they follow the process, there would be a reward at the end of it. So they endure it all and complete the application. Then they wait. Nothing happens.

Their lives are so delica...