By R. Umamaheshwari
‘Here we are all, on a dream caravan
[From Caravan of Dreams, Idries Shah]
A Caravan, but a dream,
A Dream, but a caravan
But we know which are the dreams
Therein lies the hope’
To which one may add, ‘but we know which are the dreams…and thence, we despair, that we may hope again?’
Each film, after the next, totaling nine of them—screened as part of the Travelling Kolkata People’s Film Festival recently at the CA Champs Academy premises in Hyderabad—resonated with the sentiments expressed above. These independent films, documentary and fictional, were curated and brought to Hyderabad by Aika Balaji (a bank officer and film enthusiast, associated with a collective called Mundadugu, Kolkata) and were screened in collaboration with Manchi Cinema, a collective in Hyderabad, and the Federation of Film Societies of Southern Region of Hyderabad. Balaji said he selected the best of the lot that had premiered earlier this year at the Kolkata People’s Film Festival and had taken them to Vizianagaram and Kurnool, as well. Having tried this for the first time, he said the response of the audience was proof enough that this could become a regular event. Each film was followed by enthusiastic discussions. Each of the films was a response to the contemporary economic, social, and political scenario in India today.
Viral (in Marathi) by Shreyas Dasharathe and Jamshed Irani (an Indo-Pak experiment, shot in these two countries, with first-time, local actors) was a short and sweet (if innocent) way to subvert the idea of hyper- and insular nationalism. Written by Shreyas Dasharathe, Kewal Kariya, Subramaniyan, Shahzeb Khalid, Arbab Hussain, and Kainat Thebo, the film breaks geographical and political boundaries, as well as those of class, religion, and age through the seeming simplicity of a desire to ‘go viral’ on the YouTube.
There are two young boys (Shiny and Bantu) from an obviously lower-class chawl context in Mumbai and a middle-aged gentleman from Karachi (Hammad, who rears hens, each named after a Bollywood heroine, including Kangana) from a similar economic context who become friends online and teach each other songs from their respective cultural contexts (ghazal and a Marathi lavni), which propels them to start their channel, named appropriately after friendship.
Neon by Sakshi Gulati from Hyderabad (script by Sakshi and K Govindaraju) sucks the viewer into the din and flashy colours representing the city that does not sleep. For a viewer (such as myself) from a living context filled with the sounds of nature and greenery, the film virtually shouts across, even as its protagonists (different people) live behind billboards and amidst sounds of a shopping mall, drilling machines, etc, as the only normal they know. It does not affect them as much as it would a person who cannot imagine life without trees (as Sakshi revealed, to the people in the audience, her first response to Mumbai where she could not find a single tree in relatively cheaper neighbourhoods she lived in); the life of a family that has rented its balcony space to a billboard is like that of the fish forced into a fish-tank, which is a constant image reference in the film. Neon plays with the imagery of malls, consumerism, sound, space, and light revealing the pathology of city existence.
While seeming convoluted to an extent, Footprints (Bangla, by Tathagatha Ghosh) takes us through a single day in the life of an new immigrant woman in the city who lives in a slum, where women line up to use the single washroom and toilet. Worried that she might reach her place of work late (as a domestic help), the protagonist, Pampa, rushes (leaving her infant behind in her home) and as the day goes on, suffers unbearable misery trying to control her pee. It looks like (not clear as to why) she is not allowed to pee in the toilet of the home she works in.
The family has its share of woes (which was not necessary for the film’s central point that is purity and pollution). Having done that, she finds a kind of irreverence as she shuts the toilet door with a bang and emerges, announcing her ‘feat’ to the entire family, now watching her. But the pathos of her existence returns to her as she feeds her infant, back home, in the slum.
Yet another film that approaches disempowerment by touching upon the everydayness of it was Mahasatta (Marathi, by Vikram Bolegave) set in rural Maharashtra, regarding lives of Dalits set against the backdrop of newer power battles (as a subtle reference, without preachiness) and idea of ‘development’, even as one family loses its member to the snake bite, unable to reach the victim to the ‘nearest’ hospital miles away, on a fantastic looking highway, in an autorickshaw. The humanity of the cobbler is also referenced to ascertain caste and class in a rural context.
Historian Uma Chakravarthy’s Prison Dairies (2019) is a documentary on Snehlatha Reddy who was incarcerated during the Emergency of 1975-1977, revisited through memories shared by her children and a few others. The Unknown Kerala Stories (Sanu Kummil) undoes the biased and wrong singular narrative of the film Kerala Story. Sanu, a journalist himself, travels across Kerala documenting the stories of harmony, cultural diversity, and human generosity of spirit beyond religion, caste, and creed in Kerala through this film, including the story of the Jews in Mattanchery, the Islamic school that teaches Sanskrit, among others.
Chai Darbari (Prateek Shekhar) is a slightly witty take on people’s everyday political discussions (revealing political consciousness, at times very deep and impacted by reality and at others, influenced by social media) over cups of tea in Ayodhya.
Two Way Street was the film that received the longest and most intense discussion at the screening. It is understandable, considering the raw nerve it touched, in the context of the recently concluded elections, with communal fascism as its core messaging. Written by Annie Zaidi and directed by Asmit Pathare, and excellent acting by Joy Sengupta and Gagan Dev Riar, the film is a stark portrayal of the human condition consumed by hate politics. Communities represented by the two actors are not mentioned but easily understood within moments of us entering the film canvas. A man returns to his city (Mumbai) with obvious joy and expectations, and a song on his lips (literally) which, within moments transforms into pain and trauma of being ‘identified’ as a Muslim on account of his going to a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood. The cab driver, who seems to be a ‘normal’ taxi driver, makes the customer the ‘other’ when he asks him to drive him through a particular lane to his destination. The cab driver insists the area is a ‘trouble’ area and he never would have come here had he known. Names of the communities represented by the two characters are not mentioned anywhere in the film but look at the internalization that has happened over the years of the dominant fascist narrative that the audience immediately understand who is being referenced and what is going on here. That reflects the painful reality of India today. At one point the cab driver (who even throws out the customer’s luggage, refusing to drive him further) tells him “apne wale ki gaadi kyon nahin liya” to which the customer (Joy Sengupta) says, “mereko laga tu apna hi hai”. The ‘apna’ referred to here is the larger human person (sans markers of religion, caste, creed, language) who is today lost in the din of hate. However, towards the end of the film, the cab driver does drop him off at his home (perhaps realising it was his job to do so, or perhaps wondering about the repercussions – it is left open-ended), but the most evocative moment in the film is in the end: Joy’s character (the supposedly ‘Muslim’) tries hard to hide his emotional trauma as he sits with his relatives, chatting, while, at a faraway eatery, later on, the cab driver is perhaps having a moment of introspective guilt about his behaviour. Or wondering at the words – mereko laga tu apna hi hai.
Therein, perhaps lay the hope?
R. Umamaheshwari holds a doctorate in Political Science. She has written three books and is working on a new one. She will be contributing Siasat.com regularly.
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