The ultimate wish list…

A script writing and production software installed in an ultra lightweight laptop.
A soothing alarm clock that wakes you up at 4.00 A.M.
A library of essential books and DVDs.
A film camera and a digital video camera, stored side by side.
A heavy duty computer set up that has the latest version of Adobe Premier that can take in High Definition and that which has a film option.
An Apple set up with Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools installed.
A ‘chakaas’ noise reduction system.
A projector that has ‘danchak’ luminance.
A three bedroom-hall-kitchen flat – one bedroom each for edit, sound and a mini screening room.
E & OE (errors and omissions excepted)

Suddha at Navi Mumbai

The B.S.K.B. is an association of people from a particular community migrated to the city of Mumbai from the districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada in coastal Karnataka. One of the activities that it undertakes is the running of the newly formed old age home in Nerul, Navi Mumbai, called 'Aashraya'.

A few days back a screening of SUDDHA was arranged for the mostly Tulu speaking inmates of the old age home. Unfotunatly, for some reasons, it was not possible for me to go to the screening. I guess, it went off well and am eager to know the reactions of the inmates towards the film.

A Filmy Treatment

In a recent hectic outdoor shooting of mine, more than half the unit members had gone down with diarrhea and related illness.

We thought it was the stress, but there would have been shoots that might have resulted in greater stress levels.

We thought it was the food; we had changed at least four caterers - all in vain.

We thought it was the water; but we were supplied with the minral kind.

Did we think that it was the way we handled them that caused the illness....?

Hmmmmmm... I am afraid not.

Could I have avoided the bitterness that followed..?

I regret for not having put systems in place which could have created the possibility of a compassionate man management approach that has nothing to do with a budget of the film.

Sorry, I was ignorant that it needed to happen.

I thank my unit members who despite receiving some 'filmy treatment', never allowed the nastiness to creep into the film.

The dog and it's tail.

Once an accountant, always an accountant.
Once in doubt, always in doubt.
A hand tries to straighten the tail.
The dog bites the hand that feeds it.
The habit of seperating the production from the film.
Once a film maker, not always a film maker.

Om-Dar-Ba-Dar - a revisit and a few thoughts.

Last week, I managed to watch Kamal Swaroop's 1988 film 'Om-Dar-Ba-Dar'; after almost twenty years. Kamal was showing the film to some of his students in a school of architecture in Mumbai. The hall was petty much crowded when the film began; by the time the end titles rolled in, there were lots of empty chairs.

Not that the filmmaker minded it, I thought. Considering the filmmaking path that he has been walking, maybe he is used to it by now . In the discussion that followed, Kamal in his own subversive manner, narrated the non existent 'story' of the film and its 'meaning'. It was as 'meaningless' as the film itself.

The ability to comprehend a chair as a chair...

It takes some amount of discipline and practice to watch a movie without assigning any meaning to it. What meaning would one assign to a ‘collage’? What meaning would one assign to a ‘aalaap’? The manner in which Bhimsen Joshi sings a ‘Bhajan’ could be interesting than the meaning of the ‘Bhajan’ itself.

Is it possible to watch, hear and experience a film on such a level?

Can I, for example, appreciate the shot taking patterns found in ‘Om-Dar-Ba-Dar' just as I appreciate a straight line or a brush stroke? Or can I identify with the rhythmic edit patterns that are used in the film? Or with the sound patterns and the design employed in it?

Is it possible for me to construct a film on this basis – where the form itself is the content and the meaning, subsidiary?

‘The form as politics’, as Kamal Swaroop would say.

'Putaani Party'

Links to my new feature film in Kannada language...

Trailer

Official Site

Facebook Page

'Putaani Party'

The Waiter and the Cutter...

The spoon that gets wiped on dirty pants, serves the dish.
The hand that cleans the nose, winds the negative.
Thus goes the story of the waiter and the cutter.

The Tough, the Missing and the Scratches.

The mantra was to complete, deliver and move on…
But hey, wait… where is the protagonist?
When the going got tough, the tough got missing!

Information withheld knowingly, facts released untimely;
There could be scratches on the emulsion.

Hand and the nail.

The shoot, the edit and the sound generation…
It’s all just a preparation.
The union of Picture and Sound…
The ultimate moment!

Miss this and miss the film.
A hand hammers a nail on to itself.

Frog and the Pond

Is the film there because of the production?
or
Is the production there because of the film?
Ignoring the film while making it.
A frog jumps into a deep well.
It thinks it is a pond.

********

Dev D

Me thinks, the most interesting part in the film 'Dev D' occurs only at the fag end of it - when Dev supposedly gets a realization, as a car nearly runs over him. Unfortunately, the events in the film unfold very rapidly after this point and before you can blink, the film ends. It therefore becomes nearly impossible to savor this change in the character’s thought process and hence, in his life. I wished that it had got more screen time and I wished that the purpose of this film itself was this transformation.

Otherwise, I thought, the ‘materiality’ of the film maker with regards to his film was quite evident.

Chemistry

I was sitting on the bench in front of the intensive care unit of a hospital. A close relative was inside. He had just had two attacks of convulsions, he was restless, had no sense of space or time, did not know what he talked nor could he relate to anything told to him. The doctors had opined – it was an imbalance of a chemical in his body – a chemical called Sodium.

I had hated chemistry in my college. 36 or 37 percentage was all that I could ever manage in that subject। Beyond H2O and HO2, nothing would make sense. I remember of even swearing that I would never touch chemicals and chemistry again. Alas, how wrong was I...

As I was wondering about the kind of destruction a chemical imbalance can do to a human body, a young man, whose relative too was inside the intensive care unit, struck a casual conversation with me. When I told him about the chemical issue, he got angry. ‘Does he eat a lot of fruits? These days they inject a huge amount of chemicals into fruits and vegetables so that it ripens early; it surely is the effect of that’, he blasted. I was too sleepy to argue with him; I nodded in agreement.

Two hours later, I still was thinking about Chemistry - that stupid subject that I hated the most. After watching a film, what do people mean when they say, ‘the chemistry between the actors was fantastic…’? Does it mean that the sodium levels in both the actors are equal while they were performing? Or is it the potassium levels that is creating the chemistry?

People also say that with regards to love. Love, apparently, is related to chemicals. When they say ‘opposites attract’, they probably mean that the Sodium / Potassium / Calcium / Oxygen / Sulfur / Carbon Dioxide / Zinc / or whatever chemical levels in the bodies of the two persons who are in love, are drastically different.

Or is it that the chemical levels of the two persons who are in love match well and therefore are they in love? So, if my wife and I fight it out and shout at each other, does it mean that our Fluorine / Magnesium / Rubidium / Bromine / Lead / or whatever chemical levels vary drastically? Maybe we could then just inject the necessary chemical to our bodies and create ‘love’.

Gosh! I never understood all this.

Two days later, due to an increased intake and through through careful monitoring, the Sodium levels of my relative slowly came back to normal. The symptoms associated with sodium deficiency had vanished.

Some prefer to believe that life is no miracle – it’s just a set of chemical reactions. When the reaction ceases, the body stops to function.

It is as physical as that, nothing beyond.

Paro's PMGP

Those of you who are intrested can catch up with Paromita Vohra's piece called 'The one billion rupee home' published in the book 'Mumbai Meri Jaan' (Mumbai, my love); edited by Jerry Pinto & Naresh Fernandes. It is an exhaustive article that deals with her experiences during her stay in the PMGP colony.

13\3 PMGP – End

Initially, the agent who had helped me purchase the flat had stared suspiciously at my unkempt beard and had warned me, ‘You are welcome to stay here…. But don’t do anything ‘aise-waise’ (This and that) with our girls.’ I was a bit surprised. Did I look the kind who would do all sorts of ‘aise-waise’ with anyone at all? Not taking any chances, I started to trim my beard and comb my hair regularly.

The original alloties of the flats in PMGP colony treated their film and media neighbours as ‘outsiders’. But the ‘locals’, as we used to call them, were as depended on us, as we were on them. The software boom was yet to arrive. We, therefore, were the neo-rich professionals. And we had the cash.

A journalist from New York once wrote an article on India and the transformation that it was going through due to globalisation. He did some exclusive reporting on PMGP. All of us were branded as 'young Indian yuppies' living in the gettos of Mumbai. I should thank my stars that my uncle, who was trying to find a suitable bride for me at that time, was unaware of this discription.

So, your housemaid stayed opposite you; the cable guy was just a block away, the roadside vegetable vendor resided two floors below, the milk man was on the third floor and the lady next door delivered home made food.

On the ground floor of a building, a ‘Kholi’ got converted into a hair-cutting saloon. In another, a doctor inaugurated his clinic. With in a few days he had a zerox machine and an STD booth installed. Tiny plays schools, tuition classes and beauty saloons mushroomed.

And when a sound recording studio got set up, I got the jitters. Why don’t I set up an editing suit at 13\3? After all, it was a ground floor flat. Business would be great. My friend Rajiv nodded in agreement, but my partner at ‘Dziga Collective’ thought that purchasing an auto rickshaw was a better idea.

Meanwhile activities at 13\3 continued. If a friend fought with his wife, he dropped anchor. While I wrote one of my many soon-to-be-made scripts, he stared blankly at the ceiling. When his wife hunted him down, the fight would start all over again. If a writer had guests at his house, my ‘Kholi’ was the most sought out space for screenplay narrations. Thus, the seeds of many great films were sown at 13\3.

Many times, juniors from my film school hopped in with bag and baggage. And when they searched for an alternative accommodation, guess who provided them with an estate agent? That’s right – yours truly. Where did all the deals take place? – Right again, ‘Kholi’ No. 13\3. For anyone who came to my door steps, my principle was simple - stay on as long as you wish and if I am broke, do pay my electricity bills.

There were times when, during my evening walks, a series of local estate agents used to salute or greet me. They generally enquired about my well-being and kept me amused. After all, I gave them business and charged no commission for it.

Kaate Saab (sir), his son-in-law assistant, the ‘Naani’ (aunty) with a big bindhi on her forehead sitting all by herself in her tiny balcony, the friendly independent Rajasthani grocery shop aunty and her two sons; and my ‘bai’ (house maid) who used to call me ‘beta’ (son) to get more things done by me than she ever did herself…

A cousin once remarked – ‘You are so popular that you should be a candidate for the PMGP elections, if at all there were one’. Thank God, I did not take him seriously. Otherwise, world cinema would have truly lost one of its champions!!!

Jokes apart… most people whom I knew or lived along during those days have shifted out of PMGP. But like me, many still maintain their account in a bank situated there. I have no idea why…

At times, when I visit the bank I do bump into a sound recordist friend of mine, who has been staying there for more than thirteen years now. Not that he can’t shift, he just won’t. And he is at peace with himself.

It took me a long time to get out of it. And, I believe, it had got nothing to do with the place itself or its physicality…

It was just the way I looked at it.

13\3 PMGP – Middle

The original inhabitants of PMGP were a part of a rehabilitation scheme – The Prime Minister’s Grant Project or PMGP. They had been displaced from their earlier habitat, thanks to a road project that linked two suburban centres in Mumbai. Most were migrants from other parts of the state of Maharashtra.

I had made my purchase from one such lady. It was only much later that I came to know about her profession. She brewed and sold country liquor. Her husband had apparently hanged himself to death and the rumour going around was that his wife was too ‘hot’ to handle.

My building society secretary, with grave concern, had once whispered that the lady was seeing a young but corrupt police constable, even before her husband’s death. I dared not mention any of this to anyone. ‘Budding filmmaker buys flat from a possible adulterous liquor lady’ – this also did not sound good.

But all said and done, my ground floor ‘Kholi’ was quite an ‘adda’ by itself. It had a TV set and so, people gathered whenever there was a cricket match. Otherwise too, people often dropped in with their own groceries, barged into the kitchen, made tea, cooked food, and happily ate it, as if it were their own house. Of course, they did feed me too. But that was really a by-product.

And some generous ones even brought their own ‘daaru’ – in the afternoons, before and after sunset and even at mid nights. Most times I ended up being at the receiving end of their emotional outbursts; mainly relating to personal and professional matters. I also found myself cooking for them, as best I could, so that they eat and then sleep over their ‘angst’. I would thus be relieved of the burden of listening to their woes.

And on few occasions I got emboldened enough to gulp off their ‘daaru’ and give them a taste of my own emotional outbursts – both personal and professional. That was my way of getting back at them. And invariably, my angst increased the following day when I had to clean up the mess left behind – unwashed utensils or puke stains.

One day my roommate, who worked for a then reputed but now defunct media house, had invited around twenty of his female colleagues for a ‘pharata’ party. It was the first time in my life that I had seen so many of them cramped into a 180 square feet area, chatting away to glory as they took turns making 'pharatas'. Needless to say, the next morning, I did get some strange looks from my conservative neighbours and a friendly warning by my building society secretary.

Once when the doorbell rang frantically, I found myself facing my cable guy who led a delegation of eight to ten people – all of them, his friends and family. Also along them was an agitated actress friend of mine, to whom I had introduced the cable guy. Between them, they had a financial dispute.

The amount in question - one hundred and fifty rupees. It was demanded that I mediate. After one hour of hair splitting negotiations and high-decibel arguments, the actress finally agreed to part with one hundred rupees. I had managed to strike a compromise and the cable guy still smiles whenever he sees me.

Acceptance among the non-filmy crowd was slow. But things got easier when I lent some money to a few people, asked my parents to stay with me for a few days, gave access to my telephone to one and all, helped an uneducated youth to get a job and let my ‘Kholi’ be used for social activities like society meetings and photo secessions for voter’s identification cards.

Thus, this ‘lungi’ wearing ‘Madrasi’ soon became fit enough to be considered as one among them.

13\3 PMGP – Beginning

It was a 180 sq foot ground floor flat that I had purchased during my early days in Mumbai. It was just a stopgap arrangement, before I moved on to a bigger flat. I had planned to stay there for exactly two years. It took me more than thirteen years and a whole lot of persuasion to get out of 13\3, PMGP Colony at Mahakali, Andheri (East), Mumbai.

Initially, when I brought the place, well-wishers had warned me that the number of the house was unlucky. But for me, the purchase was a huge accomplishment – acquiring a roof akin to making a film. In fact, my friend and classmate from the film school, Rajiv Katiyal did comment in jest, ‘Ram could not make a film, so he purchased a flat’.

Yes, technically it was a ‘flat’. It had a living area, a tiny kitchen space and an attached bathroom cum toilet. Back home, my relatives were surprised and even impressed! This black sheep of the family had the presence of mind to buy a flat and that too, within a few years of moving into the city.

But only I knew that this ‘flat’ or ‘house’ that I owned was actually called as a ‘Kholi’ or a small tenement, in local language. Seven such ‘Kholi’ies existed on each floor; each building had four flours and there were seventeen buildings all together. Each of these ‘Kholi’ies must have housed at least four to five members of a family.

Rajiv himself had bought one such ‘Kholi’, in the building next to mine. So had cinematographer V Naravayan and writer Ashok Mishra. And then, there was documentary filmmaker Paromita. Within a year or two, I could see a lot of familiar faces around. Most were starting out in the field of media and film – directors, cameramen, editors, actors, dance directors…

We had our own hangouts, the main one being a tea stall managed by one ‘Shetty’. ‘Shetty’, originally belonged to my state of Karnataka and thus was branded as my friend. If I am not mistaken, ‘Shetty’ was an ex-convict and for some strange reason, I thought it fit to keep this bit of information to myself. ‘Budding filmmaker befriends an ex-convict’ – didn’t sound nice at that point of time.

But the ever-talkative ‘Shetty’ was our man Friday. Keys were left with him so that roommates could collect it. The creative types would sit at his place for hours together and ‘think’ over cups of tea. Credit was provided, so was acidity. The only hitch – the man we all called ‘Shetty’ was not a ‘Shetty’, but an ‘Alva’. But for us, the equation was clear. Any hotel owner in Mumbai is a ‘Shetty’.

The TV industry was on the upswing and a few senior filmmakers that we knew of, had got together to form a body called ‘Channel Dosti’ (Channel Friendship). Or so, we at PMGP had heard. The idea, I believe, was to form a media collective. Soon, there was a meeting at my house. It was suggested by my PMGP colleagues that we too should form a body called ‘Channel Dushmani’ (Channel Enmity). Fortunately, like ‘Channel Dosti’, ‘Channel Dushmani’ too never took off.

But what we did manage to form was a media unit called ‘Dziga Collective’ consisting of fellow FTII graduates. The first and only job of this collective was to weekly sub-produce around eight to ten current affairs programs of three minutes each for Daryl D’Monte.

That meant that we needed at least eight to ten shooting units per week. It all seemed daunting at that time. But believe me, all we had to do was to walk into this ‘Shetty’ joint of ours, and lo, you found the unit that you wanted.

It was as easy as that.

Akbar, Krish and Om Agarwal...

In the numerous Saas-Bahu (mother-in-law / daughter-in-law) serials that are currently on air on Indian prime time Television, it normally is the woman who does all the sinister scheming. In one particular serial ‘Pallavi’ is the scheming sister-in-law and ‘Parvathi’ is the wife who effectively counters her sinister designs. The point of contention is normally a man, Om Agrawal in this case; who is portrayed as a dumb and ignorant gentleman, oblivious to the overt plotting that happens around him.

The other day I happened to watch ‘Jodha Akbar’. In the film, Mogul emperor Akbar’s Hindu wife Jodha steps out of her palace in the middle of the night to meet her brother. Akbar’s scheming foster mother makes this encounter look like an adulterous liaison. Akbar believes and within a fraction of a second pronounces Jodha as guilty. She is sent back to her father’s place.

It looked odd to me that the emperor of India, who usually is so alert to all the political schemers around him, does not even think for a second that the theory that portrays Jodha as an adulterous wife could actually be doubted! How can the sharp witted emperor be portrayed as so dumb, especially when it is know that his decision to marry a Hindu has opened a can of worms in his own ranks?

Despite the filmmaker’s great eye for the detail, for a second I thought I was watching Om Agarwal in a period costume.

In another sequence in the film, Akbar is shown taming a wild elephant. There is a shot where Akbar, without any support, first jumps on to a wall and then rebounds on to the elephant, to sit on top of it. The elephant is now tamed. It was as if he had flying powers. In another film ‘Krish’, Hrithik Roshan the actor who plays Akbar in ‘Jadha Akbar’ had played the title role of a super hero who could fly.

For a second I thought I was watching ‘Krish’ who had been transported into medieval India...

Yaadein

When an adulterous husband finds out that his wife and kids have left him for good, he undergoes pangs of guilt, gets depressed and in a mentally unstable condition attempts to kill himself, only to be saved just in time by the return of the dutiful wife. Needless to say, there is a family reunion.

There is nothing in this plot line to suggest that a film based on it would be different from the rest of the films that the formula based mainstream Indian film industry churns out day in and out. An erroneous husband is tamed; the institution of marriage is eventually upheld. The lady in question is a typical understanding ‘Bharathiya Naari’, who despite being ill-treated, loves her husband, takes care of her family and performs her household duties to perfection. This could well have been one of those ‘sentiment’ oriented ‘weepy kerchief films’ that the South Indian Film Industry is so adept with!

For some reason or the other, I missed watching ‘Yaadein’ – the Hindi film made on this plot line, for over twenty years – i.e. ever since I came to know that such a movie existed. It was only last week that I could watch it, thanks to a DVD copy of the film that I chanced upon. My keenness to watch Yaadein stemmed from only one fact - it boasts itself of being the ‘world’s first one actor movie’, as it is put in the titles.

How could the director have managed this? It is relatively easy in theater for a solo actor to communicate to an audience; the means adopted is soliloquies – instances where a person talks loudly to himself, not addressing anyone in particular. Sunil Dutt, the producer, director and the solo actor of ‘Yaadein’, does takes recourse to this device, quite often in the film. At times he is even seen talking to innate objects like a wall painting or a bronze statue.

Phone conversations where you hear the other person’s voice is another way of letting the audience know what is in the character’s mind. We do come to know that Anil Mehra, the main character of the film, has an affair with another woman, that he is anxious of his wife’s absence in the house and that his friends think that his wife is a model for all the other married women in the world – all through sequences that have phone conversations.

Anil Mehra misses his wife. A sure shot method of communicating this to an audience is to ask the character to get hold of a friend and confess to him through a dialogue as to how lonely he is. But as a filmmaker if you have closed down that option and you have already over used the soliloquies, the next obvious thing to do is to give the character some actions that may suggest that he is missing his wife.

Thus we have Anil Mehra looking at a hair pin that his wife used, stare at it with longing eyes in different angles, feel it with his chin and emotionally hold it close to his lips. Apart from hairpin, he repeats the same routine with her dress, her bed, her musical instrument, his children’s toys etc… We also see him dramatically hold his head, face and chin in various places of the house – on the table, near the stairs, in the balcony, near the bed etc…to various emotional background music pieces.

To be honest your first reaction when you see any of these is ‘Oh god, not again!’ But just when we start thinking that the director is making life easy for himself by using such easy and obvious devices for his solo character to communicate with his audience, within the contrast filled black and white roving images of Ramchandra, the language begins to get bolder, stranger and out of the box!

‘Yaadein’ happens within a span of one rainy dark night where Anil Mehra remembers the events of his life that has led to the situation that he is presently in. Obviously there are flashbacks where we hear conversations that he has had with his wife, in happier times. In the initial part of the film we hear only the dialogues - voices of himself, his wife and children.

But gradually, the film starts going visually into the past. We actually see what Anil Mehra is thinking – the only difference being that we don’t see the rest of the characters. The camera itself takes the point of view of the wife or the kids. So, half the film we have the character played by Sunil Dutt speaking to and having dialogues with the camera, which now has become a character. The gaze of the camera is normally the gaze of the audience. So in effect, the audience becomes the characters, thus its involvement in the story / film is ensured.

When the hero and the heroine of the film first meet over a cup of coffee, Mario Miranda’s cartoons are used to establish the atmosphere in the coffee shop and the characters in it. Over cartoon drawings of various couples sitting in various tables, we hear their respective interactions through dialogues on the sound track.

The only live character in the entire sequence is the one played by Sunil Dutt. Anil Mehra enters the coffee shop, sits in front of the heroine, gets bullied by her brother, and finally even woes her – all this without the face of the heroine or her brother be seen. And did I hear somebody say that mixing still cartoons with live characters was the prerogative of a few music channels?

Further, during certain other times, especially in romantic situations, the director extends this logic when we see Anil Mehra hugging a portrait of a lady drawn on a glass pane. The portrait is supposed to represent his wife! We hear the wife’s dialogues as we see the portrait. Taken out of its context, if I had to tell someone that ‘Yaadein’ had many such sequences, it is possible that it would sound bizarre and even probably funny.

But seen within the context of the rest of the techniques used in the film, it seems perfectly logical that the hero hugs a glass pane that has a lady’s drawing on it! And the glass pane even moves a couple of inches back when Priya, the wife’s character is not in a mood for any physical intimacy and moves forward when she is! And we do believe that Anil Mehra and Priya are having an intimate moment between themselves!

If you are not awed or amused or shaken by the above sequences, then what follows in the film surely make you so! As the film progresses, we see numerous examples of the stubborn refusal by the director to show any other character in the film apart from its hero, in flesh and blood - the immediate one being a sequence where Anil Mehra decides to throw a party in his house to celebrate the birth of his son.

Believe it or not, in this sequence balloons are used in lieu of real people. These balloons have human faces painted on them and they talk with each other through dialogues that we hear in the sound track! Anil Mehra interacts with them as if he is interacting with live people. A lady balloon serves drinks, yet another is pissed drunk on the sofa, and a few more flirt with each other. But the effect - we really feel that a messy party is on. The conviction in which the filmmaker has carried this off, the suspension of disbelief is complete.

In a sense it is surreal – like the scene just before the climax where Anil Mehra is confronted by the suddenly menacing looking noisy toy sets. In earlier times he used to play with the same toys with his children, but now in the true expressionist sense, they have returned to haunt him – some of them even hang in front of him, threaten him, follow him and block his way, wherever he goes.

After having heard and felt the character Priya, I was longing to see her in flesh and blood, at least in the end when it became obvious that she is going to return to her house to forgive her husband. Maybe my mind made unfair connections with another film of the yesteryears - ‘Jagthe Raho’, where the only time we see a heroine (Nargis), is in the song sequence in the climax.

The dubbing of Priya in ‘Yaadein’ was indeed done by Nargis, but the closest that one came to see her live was when her shadow is shown rescuing the hero from the jaws of death. The sequence is shot in silhouette, the action of which happens on the other side of a backlit white cloth.

A thought did cross my mind at this point of time. What difference would it have made if instead of a live shadow, we had seen the real Nargis rescuing Sunil Dutt? Or for that matter, what difference would it have made to the film if instead of using all those techniques to hide the other actors, the director actually showed them?

Sunil Dutt could as well have done so, but choose not to because it was a creative option that he and his team had exercised. In filmmaking, most of us are forced to find creative solutions to issues that arise from circumstances upon which we do not have a control. But I would guess that Sunil Dutt had the means to make this film into a scale that is much larger than what it is now, but choose not to.

I may think twice before using a balloon or a drawing on a glass pane and parade them as real characters in any of my films, even as a spoof. I am also not in tangent with the high intensity emotional pitch of the film, the melodramatic externalized acting of its only actor, the stereotype characters portrayed in it – especially that of Priya who has no identity of her own apart from being a dutiful wife and a loving mother.

It seems odd to me that the very first thing she does when she comes back is to plead her husband to forgive her, for she thinks that she has made a big mistake by walking out of her house / marriage - never mind that it is the husband who has broken his promises and not her! This regressive world view puts one off.

But ‘Yaadein’ is worth the view - what excites me is its director’s consistent creative experimentation with the cinematic tools that he has under him and his willingness to tread the path of the unknown.

It is often said that the Film Industry, unlike other industries, lacks a Research & Development (R&D) section to it – a section that can look ahead, develop new techniques and products. But I would like to believe that if there was any such attempt in the Indian Film industry in the past or present, this is it.

This article is published on the site Upperstall

Of a few good men and a lot of screenings…

In the first screening schedule of my Tulu language digital feature film SUDDHA (The Cleansing Rites) that was held in the villages of Coastal Karnataka a few months back, I had traveled to various schools and colleges. But for the second and the third schedules, I decided to target the general public. This automatically meant that the screenings had to be held only in the evenings. Yet, I managed to have two screenings a day, for during the day time I continued showing the film to interested college students.

After having written to almost all the Gram Panchayats (Village Governing Bodies) in the Tulu speaking areas of the State of Karnataka and after having hobnobbed with various governmental and non governmental cultural organizations requesting them to take the initiative in hosting or arranging the screenings of SUDDHA in the villages of coastal Karnataka; and having failed to evoke any response, I decided to individually contact grassroots level groups that have engaged themselves in cultural activism.

I dug up old contacts, networked hard and touched base with organizations that had people who staged plays, who thought dance, who held literary debates, who encouraged local folk forms and who worked for the cultural development of the Tulu speaking area of Coastal Karnataka. The response, I should say, was encouraging.

Consider this. After having traveled for over three hours from my base town Udupi on bumpy, curvy and narrow roads over vast tracts of forest land, I landed in an extremely remote village called Sulliyapadavu where our host, a seventy year old Kudkadi Vishwanath Rai welcomed us. Although he had asked for two screenings in his village, I wondered if, in this sparely populated area, there would be enough for even one!

Kudkadi Vishwanath Rai, after his retirement as a teacher in a near by town, had settled down in Sulliyapadavu, his native village. He and his family perform dance dramas in a small hall that he has constructed by the side of his house. He teaches classical dance to interested children; runs a small nursery school in his premises and hosts many meetings of self help women’s groups in the area. He had seen SUDDHA when it was screened in the city of Mangalore and was insistent that I come to his place with the film.

Half and hour to the first show, he switched on his TV set, connected it to a loud speaker, played some local music and smiled, ‘this would let the people know that a function is about to begin.’ Sure enough, the place gradually got filled and soon Kudkadi was seen excitedly talking about my film to his audience that mainly consisted of uneducated daily laborers working in and around the village.

The second show had an overflow of people and Kudkadi was like a child excited by the response that his call had evoked. He had even arranged a simple meal to all those who overstayed in his house after seeing the film! I can never forget the image of Kudkadi running to his gate, explaining the virtues of the film to the passersby and convincing them to watch it. It felt good that someone you hardly ever knew was out there battling it out for your film.

But everything was not as smooth as this. The first screening of the second schedule held at Govindas College, Surathkal was a disaster. As per the instruction of the principal, the teacher of class twelfth, herded in around sixty of her students into the screening hall and sensing an opportunity, instantly went off home. A lecturer from the nearby classroom dropped in fifteen minutes after the start of the screening and forced us to reduce the sound volume as his students were writing their exams. Those who were watching SUDDHA got disinterested because they could not clearly hear the sound track. Within half an hour the hall was empty and I was staring at a situation which could easily be termed as a director’s worst nightmare!

But for every such screening there were quite a few impeccable ones that culminated in a meaningful dialogue like the one that happened in Konaji in Mangalore University under the initiative of its Mass Communication staff Dr GP Shivaram and Dr Poornanand; or the one at 'Ranga Adhyayana Kendra', Bandarkar's College in Kundapur town arranged by Vasant Bannadi or even at the 'Bala Khendra' at Nittur village organized by the Lions organization led by a local construction contractor Ishwar Chitpadi.

It is important for me to add that over the years Dr Poornanand in his personal capacity has been spending lakhs of rupees in collecting DVD copies of classic films from all over the world so that he can show them to his students, that Vasant Bannadi is an economics lecturer who has convinced his college management to open a full time course in dramatics, the money for which is contributed by the people of his town and that the 'Bala Kendra' is a Government run remand home cum destitute house for hardened children and abandoned women.

Although there were some organizers for whom the screening of SUDDHA was just another program that fitted into their yearly report, along with the likes of blood donation and rabbis vaccination camps, most of the people who helped me arrange the screenings were extremely committed that the film gets its audience. Dr Niranjan Rai, an over worked but still energetic homeopathy doctor from Uppinangadi town was another of those who took the cudgels on my behalf. Single handedly he had arranged for five screenings in various villages, convincing whomsoever he could, including his patients, to host the screenings. And he still has few more up his sleeves!

One such patient that he had convinced was Manohar, a junior lawyer in the town of Puttur and a member of the Youth Club of his tiny village called Yelankini situated below the Western Ghats. The only large structures that Yelankini boasted of are a primary school and a temple. The village is connected to the main town of Uppinangadi by a forty five minute drive on a rickety route where the bus frequency is just three to four times a day.

It was an open air screening at the Yelankini School and there were around more than three hundred villagers watching the movie sitting firmly on little school benches. There were a few auto rickshaws and share-a-jeeps parked at the rear of the ground; with people sitting inside and on top of the vehicles. A drive in theater in the true sense!

It was an audience that wasn’t much exposed to the fast paced weepy soaps that every other television channel beams these days. I was sitting amidst the audience and the way it experienced and reacted to the film with rapt attention was an eye-opener for me. Here was a film that some city audience had termed as a ‘slow paced arty film’ that went above your head and yet, for these people the engagement with the film was perfect!

The Youth Club of Kanakamajalu village, headed by a young agriculturalist Lakshminarayana, too had arranged a screening in their open air ground of their school. The fact that there were no external disturbances like traffic noises did help these open air screenings. The ideal acoustics that exists within the dark hall of a normal film theater cut off from the rest of the world automatically creates a space for the audience to experience a film. But here in villages like Kanakamajalu where there are no film theaters, this space had to be created - mainly through the enthusiasm of the organizers.

Encouraged by the success of this screening, Lakshminarayana and his friends are now planning a week long Film Festival in Kanakamajalu and have even managed to convince a few of the village elders about it! Among the films that they want to screen is an experimental short film from Andra Pradesh, whose DVD copy they have managed to somehow acquire! The language of the film is an alien Telugu and its images and edit pattern, extremely surreal!

I.K. Boluvaru is also toying with the idea of arranging a Documentary Film Festival in his home town of Puttur. He works in the Telephone Department of the Government of Karnataka, but is more known for his activism in the children’s theater. He had convinced the Durgaprasad Rai of the 'Puttur Tulu Kuta', an organization working for the revival of Tulu culture and language, to arrange a screening in Puttur. ‘Puttur needs a screening of SUDDHA’, he had declared when I first contacted him.

The screening itself was held in front of the traditional house of Purandara Bhat, a member of Tulu Kuta. The house is actually a cultural center in the town and it houses the offices of a host of organizations like an amateur drama troupe, a writer’s association apart from the Tulu Kuta itself. The house is dwarfed by three newly constructed shopping complexes, yet a culturally oriented Purandara Bhat refuses to let go of this prime property to any local builder for a reconstruction and rehabilitation package!

Throughout the three screening schedules of SUDDHA, I have experienced that the screening goes off well, if the organizers are committed to their audience. This commitment normally showed in the way they selected the venue and the date; the way they printed pamphlets, drew posters and banners and even in the way they arranged the chairs for their audience. In many places the organizers had individually visited people’s houses inviting them for the screening, had urged them on the phone to come over and had even reminded them of the screening over numerous SMSes.

Of course, my personal equation with some of the organizers also helped. Twenty three years ago, as a young college student, I attended a fifteen-day theater workshop organized in a village called Baalila, under the leadership of a school teacher called R.K. Bhaskar. I have fond memories of the workshop not only because it was the first time that I had stepped out of my house for such a long period of time, but also because the workshop had opened up many new things for me, in my life. So, it was a pleasant surprise when one day I got a call from Bhaskar, saying that he wanted to arrange a screening of SUDDHA in his courtyard in Baalila.

Bhaskar strives to incorporate theater, crafts, music and films into children’s education. So, over and above holding his regular classes in the school in which he is employed, he - on his own initiative – conducts various cultural workshops for the school children in his house. Off late, for various reasons his activities had diminished and by his own admission, the screening of SUDDHA in his house was a sort of revival of his days of cultural activism. I am glad that SUDDHA had the possibility of being such a catalyst.

Theater director Jeevan Ram too has staged and hosted many modern plays at an open air theater that he has designed and constructed in his own backyard. He stays in the outskirts of the small town of Sullia. He makes traditional mementos and designs the sets for huge stage functions to earn his living. Over the years he has developed his own set of loyal audience, who have taken a liking to whatever that comes from ‘Ranga Mane’, the organization that he heads.

‘Ranga Mane’ also publishes books and SUDDHA was screened after the release of a new book written by a local writer. Ideally I would have liked to have had just the screening as a stand alone event and not be tagged along with some other agenda of the organizers. But having participated in the book release function one did realize that for people like Jeevan Ram the book release and the film screening had a similar context – a context that would provide the village audience a variety of cultural presentations that would enable them to find their own voice.

Years ago, in a remote village called Heggodu in Shimoga district in Karnataka, an agriculturalist named K.V. Subanna believed that every village should find out and have their own cultural expressions. In his village, he went on to construct a modern theater that staged world class plays in all languages. He plunged himself into theater education, starting a year long state level course in dramatics. He organized film appreciation courses and showed the likes of ‘Roshomon’, ‘Pather Panchali’ and ‘Bicycle Thieves’ to his fellow villagers. He formed a theater repertoire that traveled to every nook and corner of Karnataka, performing plays that had modern sensibilities.

For over two to three decades Heggodu was the cultural capital of Karnataka. Hundreds of writers, teachers, students, theater artists and the rest of the intelligentsia flocked to this remote village to participate in the yearly cultural workshops that was organized there. K.V. Subanna had one mantra to tell everyone - go back to your roots and with local participation help find the cultural identity of your own villages.

The attempts by Jeevan Ram, R.K. Bhaskar, Lakshminarayana, I.K. Boluvaru, Kudkadi Vishwanath Rai, Vasant Bannadi, Dr Poornanand and others in creating their audience in their own backyard might be an offshoot of this. As much as I owe to these men the success of the screenings of SUDDHA in the villages of Coastal Karnataka, I also do owe a lot to the Late K.V. Subanna - the inspirational cultural visionary.

I have never had any personal interaction with him when he was alive. But the pioneering efforts that he had initiated decades back have surely helped me, today, to find an audience for my Tulu film SUDDHA.

The making of SUDDHA and the process of finding an audience for it has been an extremely satisfying journey for me. The ‘Best Indian Film’ award that it received at the Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian Films in 2006 helped it get heard in places that mattered. The modest Exhibition Fund that I received from the Hubert Bals Fund, The Netherlands gave me the necessary means to find my audience.

Have I been successful in creating a self sufficient system where money recovered from the exhibition of a film would lead to the making of another? I am afraid not. If I had charged all those who wanted to arrange the screenings, only a few people would have seen the film. And because I have not charged for the screenings, I will have to struggle all over again to produce and direct another feature film. That is the reality and sometimes you choose it.

SUDDHA in the land of Girni

The magnificent Ararat peak greeted me when I first landed in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia - a country that was once a part of the erstwhile Soviet Union Bloc. The snow peaked mountain was just majestic. I just could not take my eyes off it.

I was there in Yerevan along with my feature film SUDDHA (The Cleansing Rites) to attend the Golden Apricot International Film Festival that was held from 9-14 July 2007. With me in the vehicle was Ms An Cheong-sook, a film critic from South Korea. Her gaze too, was on the Ararat.

Mount Ararat is one of the tallest of the peaks in the area. Armenians often boast that that it can be seen from anywhere in their country. It is presently located just beyond its borders, in the Turkish territory.

It is said that during the Biblical times, the Noah’s Ark had landed in Mount Ararat. Some archaeologists quote satellite images and swear that the remains of the Arc are still buried somewhere in the snow peaked mountain. Some others say that it’s just a myth.

Armenia is a country that is rebuilding itself in its new found freedom. Literally, one can see a lot of high rise constructions coming up in the city of Yerevan, blocking the infamous view of the Ararat. Presently, there is a real estate boom; its economy heavily dependent on tourism.

It is surprising that there are hardly any direct flights to its capital. I had to make a nine hour travel to Moscow, had to undergo a layover of another nine hours which got painstakingly extended to twenty; and had to finally take another three hours flight to back to Yerevan. And my plane had almost flew over Armenia to reach Moscow!

The Golden Apricot International Film Festival is just in its fourth year. But its director Harutun Khachatryan, a filmmaker himself, has already managed to associate it with the Rotterdam and the Pusan Film Festivals. Apart from the usual retrospectives, competition and non competition sections, the festival also had a pitching workshop for Eastern European filmmakers.

SUDDHA (The Cleansing Rites) was in the competition section. I was pleasantly surprised when after the screening, people observed and talked about the sound design of the film. I had proudly designed it myself and this was the first time someone had noticed it without me having to blow my own trumpet!

The public screening had around forty members watching the film, including a few Indian students. Many decades back, apparently the Armenians like the rest of the Soviet Block, had swayed to the tune of Raj Kapoor and his ‘Awaara’. Indian Cinema is identified with the song and dance routine. It was indeed heartening to see the public take a liking to this small non mainstream digital film made in a language that many in India itself do not know of.

I saw ‘Alexandra’ a Russian film directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. It is about an old lady’s visit to her grandson serving in a Russian military camp situated within the Chechen Republic. The film does not have any war sequences, yet it is a brilliant portrayal of anti-war sentiments. ‘Climates’ by Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a co-production between France and Turkey. It is a subtle study of relationships and loneliness and it had won the FIPRESCI award at Cannes in 2006.

Faruk Loncarevic’s ‘Mom ‘n’ Dad: Reality Show’ is a stubbornly slow paced movie that portrays the daily monotonous life of an elderly couple staying alone in Bosnia. But for the irritating mock commercials that are interspersed in-between, I thought the film has an essence that came across quite fluently. ‘Love Concurs All’ which had made a name for itself and its director Tan Chui Mui, both in Pusan and Rotterdam film festivals is a nice little Korean film about love and faith.

‘Tressette- A story of an Island’ has an unusual story about a bunch of card players in a deserted Island who are trying to recruit a fourth player when one among them dies. Croatian directors Drazen Zarkoviae and Pavo Marinkoviae have succeeded in subtly portraying the humorous interpersonal relationships between the sparse inhabitants left in the island.

There are only a few Armenian films being made these days and almost most of them are funded or co-produced by the cultural department of the Armenian government. ‘The Priestess’ by Vigen Chaldranian tells the story of a priestess of an Armenian temple in Girni, in a violent era which saw Armenia adopt Christianity as a state religion thousands of years back.

In my brief stay in Yeravan, I noticed that the Armenians are proud of the fact that they are the first state in the world to adopt Christianity. But in this film, an Armenian historian is in search of his country’s identity that goes beyond the Christian era. The temple of Girni is the only pre-Christianity temple standing in Armenia today. It is a pity that time did not permit me to visit and gaze at this historical temple.

The genocide of the Armenians by the military in Turkey during the First World War lingers heavily in the collective subconscious of the Armenians. The fact that a production company from Italy with funding from Italy, France, Bulgaria, Spain and the United Kingdom had to make a film on this subject is a reflection of the state in which the Armenian Film Industry is presently in.

‘The Last Lark’ directed by the Taviani Brothers was the opening film of the festival. It talks about one such Armenian family caught in the genocide. Although a few men from the Turkish delegation who were attending the Film Festival later told me privately that the film was too simplistic and heavily one sided, the Armenians gave a standing ovation to the film that lasted more than five minutes. The clapping never seemed to stop!

During the festival, I have had the opportunity to acquaint myself with some wonderful people. Critics – Klaus Edgar, An Cheong-sook, Anna Gareb, Zaven Boyajyan; Producer -Behrooz Hashmian; Distributor - Hans Hodel and directors like Pavao Marinkovic, Peter Lom, Sergy Bukovsky and Celine Gulekjian.

Hrant Hakobyan the veteran Armenian director, with whom I have had many intense discussions about India related issues like Satyajit Ray, Raj Kapoor, the Richird Gere - Shilpa Shetty kiss saga and the likes of it; signed off my trip with the comment – ‘Deep in my heart I do believe that there is a deep connection between India and Armenia’.

How wonderful it would have been if this would result in a co-production between the two countries. It would come very much in handy for me, because as such I am finding it difficult to raise the necessary money for my second film.

I realized only after I came back to India that maybe people in Armenia too may be thinking about the same lines - looking to the rest of the world to fund their films. The breed of directors are the same, the world over!

A Premier

A few months back I had approached Mr. T.A. Srinivas of Chitrabharathi, to distribute my Tulu digital film SUDDHA (The Cleansing Rites) in Mangalore. Tulu films have a history of just over thirty five years. On an average, one Tulu film is being made every year. In the two districts in which Tulu language is spoken, Mangalore is the biggest center for such films – followed by Udupi and Putthur. A four weeks run in each of these center is enough for a Tulu film to be considered as successful. If the production costs of the movie is kept to the minimum and if it is intelligently publicized, Tulu films do recover their money. Some producers even swear that profits can be made.

Srinivas is from Mangalore. He has made a career out of distributing the Kannada films of Dr. Rajkumar in Coastal Karnataka. His love for his native Tulu language and his fascination for the film production bug, has seen him venture into the making of a couple of Tulu movies which, by his own confessions, were just moderately successful. Srinivas takes immense pride in his language. He banks on his wisdom that the audience to his Tulu movies would come to the theaters for their sheer love of the language. His logic is that if you have a movie which has a little bit of song, dance and fight; and therefore quality in it, the viewers would follow. What is at stake is the ‘Tulu Pride’.

When I first met Srinivas, I was already in talks with a Mumbai based company that facilitates the digital exhibition of films. The company has a network of theaters all over India, especially in the western region. These theaters have digital projection facilities. Being the only player in Coastal Karnataka, its presence in the region is immense. My film SUDDHA is shot digitally and when I proposed to the company that they facilitate the distribution of the film in two of their theaters in Coastal Karnataka, they were taken aback.

Up till now they had just facilitated digital exhibition of feature films that were shot in celluloid. Huge film production and distribution houses look up to the digital exhibition of their films mainly to reduce their print costs. Besides, with digital exhibition there is the possibility of having a simultaneous release of their films in centers across the country, thereby increasing their revenue earning capacity. The digital projection facilitating company takes a certain amount of money from the exhibitor as well as the distributor for each of the show it helps project.

And here was a guy who had shot a small feature film in standard definition video, in an obscure language and was asking for just one week of theatrical time in two small town theaters! Their first reaction was a big 'No'. Then after two test projections, in which I got my material converted to a format called 720P, they agreed. A few weeks later, their CEO vetoed the idea – my guess is that it just did not make business sense for them to help release a feature film for just two weeks, that too in the morning slot. The official reason given to me was that the films they take up for distribution facilitation are the ones that are at least shot on High Definition Video (HDV).

Srinivas was open to the idea of a digital screening of SUDDHA. But as the saying goes, even if the gods are willing, the priests refuse. He keenly followed my interactions with the digital exhibition facilitating company, but was not entirely disappointed when they refused to take up the film. By now he had seen a copy of the film which I had send him and had unilaterally declared that it was fit for the ‘classes’ and not the ‘masses’. When I suggested that we hire a theater, a digital projector and facilitate the release of the film ourselves, I sensed that he was not too keen.

He blurted out facts on how much we would stand to loose in case the ‘public’ never came to the halls. Over the last few years, he said, he was disappointed with the declining ‘Tulu Pride’ of his audience. Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam films have had decent runs in Mangalore, but no one bothers about Tulu any more, he lamented. A few months back, he had organized a Tulu Film Festival to celebrate 35 years of Tulu Film Industry. But the ticket sales were pathetic, he complained. As for me, getting SUDDHA distributed in mainstream theaters in Mangalore was slowly getting transformed into a distant dream.

Then, all of a sudden a month back, I got a call. Srinivas had booked one of the biggest halls in Mangalore for the 26th of May. He was willing to hire a LCD digital projector and have a single show of SUDDHA for the people of Mangalore. He would not charge tickets, but would collect donations form sponsors, invoking their infamous ‘Tulu Pride’. He even promised me a token amount, asked for the film stills and a copy of the censor certificate. He meant business, although the scale was much smaller than we had originally thought of. The flip side of it was that I was to be felicitated with some fruits, a heavy garland, a traditional brass plate, a huge memento and a red shawl!

I agreed - anything for the release of my film!

So, on the 26th of May, 2007 I had the opportunity to witness the ‘premier’ show of my first feature film. Also felicitated during the occasion was my co-producer Mohan Marnad and two of my actors. Srinivas had made a huge poster of SUDDHA which was displayed at the venue. The design, I must admit, was eye catching. He even had a press conference, three days before the screening. But when Srinivas sheepishly confessed that the advertisements that he had proposed to publish on the day of the screening, never made it to the local press, I choose to believe him. A few people knew about the screening. Yet, there was an audience of around three hundred.

The screening started only after all the sponsors of the event were given an opportunity to speak and have their moments of glory. After all, they were honoring the film and the team that had given international ‘recognition’ to their own Tulu, which was one of the five main languages of the Dravidian branch. When his turn came, Srinivas lamented, chided and even scolded his audience for turning up in such a small number. ‘Where is your 'Tulu Pride'?’ he screamed.

Over the years there have been serious attempt into lobbying the language into the 8th schedule of our constitution. But the fact that there is no widespread usage of the Tulu Fonts, has never made that into a reality. Tulu has been recently included as a subject in some schools. A few vocal activists are already baying for a separate Tulu State. And as they say, above all, the Tulu film fraternity has also been day dreaming about having its own Film Development Corporation!

One of the guests spoke about how SUDDHA had contributed immensely to the Tulu cause. He referred the film as ‘our film SUDDHA’, almost claiming its ownership. That was it. Something told me that the film that I had helped create was, now, no longer mine. And I am not even through with my two week commercial release!

My deep felt thanks to Srinivas and for all those who believed in the film.

An Autograph of Acceptance

There is always is a strong stinking sense of incompleteness if the film that you have made does not get the opportunity to be viewed widely. The mainstream cinema is lucky to be having a business model in its production-distribution-exhibition chain that facilitates this process of dissemination. But it has its own set of unwritten rules that defines the likes and dislikes of its audience. Unfortunately, in the little interaction that I have had with the harbingers of mainstream cinema, my Tulu language digital feature film SUDDHA has been branded as a film that will not be accepted by a ‘wider audience’. It has been portrayed as THE ‘eternal truth’.

While I do accept that it is becoming increasingly difficult for my film to find a wider audience within the well entrenched production - distribution - exhibition system that the mainstream cinema can boast off, it is a total myth that films like SUDDHA cannot lend itself to a wider audience. There are quite a number of people who would like to see the film on the big screen, but unfortunately because it is perceived that this audience is not substantial enough to cope up with the economics of a conventional theatrical release, the existing exhibitors are very reluctant to show the film in their theaters – and this is true even if you are willing to take the risk and pay the theater rentals before hand!

In such a scenario, how do I get across my film to a willing audience – however small it might be when compared to the pan-India audience that a mainstream Hindi film has?

Fortunately, through a little bit of external funding, I now have the opportunity to exhibit this film in a scale that can bring in the wider audience. Instead of solely relying on conventional theaters, I can target schools, colleges and small film clubs in Coastal Karnataka, where Tulu language is spoken. If nothing else, they would be having a space to screen the movie and a ready made set of audience as well. For the past six months, I had already arranged around fifteen sporadic shows to such an audience. But to achieve a target of one hundred screenings, one needs a road show. And this is now possible.

Soon enough, for the first time in my life, I came to know that in every district in Karnataka, there exists a government officer called the Deputy Director of Public Instructions and that I had to seek his permission to screen my film in the high schools that come under him. I was suggested by his office that I take a nominal contribution from the management of each school amounting to five rupees per head . As soon as I agreed, the typist was instructed- “Madam, please type a permission letter similar to that we had issued to those ‘science guys’.”

Apparently, there were some people who wanted the high school students to see some science based instructional films on how airplanes worked. Yes, the fact that my ‘award winning’ film was being put at the same level as the ‘instructional film’ did put me off for a while. But sometime it helps to take what one gets first. It allowed me to long for more. Having tasted blood, I went to the Deputy Director of Pre-University College, and even got his permission to screen the film in the Pre-University colleges that came under him.

I had to complete my first set of screenings by February 2007, for this was the time when the kids either had their exams or were busy preparing for them. I decided to focus on just one Taluk, mainly because life would be easier in terms of logistic arrangements. Dates and timings of the screenings were decided upon based on long distance calls made from Mumbai to the respective heads of the institutions. Ten working days from a total of fifteen would have to be converted into twenty five screenings – so at times I had to have three shows a day!

The screening venues would be classrooms, school halls, or even college offices where, unfortunately, considerable day light would be sneaking through. Therefore, the projector needed to be powerful. I armed myself with a 3000 luminance projector, a bulky 7x5 inch portable screen, a DVD player and the necessary cables. To maintain uniformity in the sound quality to an audience that I presumed should not be more than two hundred per show, we zeroed in on a system that included a 250 watts amplifier and two 100 watts bulky speakers along with their stands.

All this meant that I needed to hire a vehicle and an assistant to help me with the screenings. I got Harish, a local under worked still cameraman, to accompany me. Suresh, the taxi owner cum driver whom I had hired, came to know about my filmy connections, and immediately increased his stake. But thanks to the highly visible portable screen kit tied on to the top of the car everyone knew that the screening guys had arrived.

It was a struggle to stimulate the optimum conditions that are needed to screen a film. The venues were dirty – they had to be cleaned and mostly such a thing happened only after our arrival. Benches and desks had to be arranged or removed – depending on where the kids were going to be seated. In the front rows, they would normally be squatting. The teachers sat on dignified chairs, followed by the kids who occupied the benches and then the desks - which had higher levels. In the last row or two, people even stood up on these benches.

My audience per screening ranged anywhere from 70 to 600 in number. In one particular venue, some primary school kids, who had sneaked into the hall in excitement, sat 180 degrees to the screen and saw the film - their eyes and mouth wide open. Where the number exceeded 200 and where the possibility of two screenings were bleak, I had to boost the sound levels through the amplifier. The front row guys would therefore hear a slightly distorted sound and the last row would complain that the volume was low. Besides, in most of the halls and classrooms, there was no proper ventilation – the closing of the doors and windows was not adding to the cause.

Frequent power cuts, forced me to hire generators. To deal with the resultant power fluctuations, I had to hire a bulky stabilizer, or else the extra-sensitive projector would on its own, switch off its bulb. Soon, I got the heads of each of these institutions to request the Karnataka Electricity Board not to implement a power cut when the screenings were on. They responded well, except in cases of major unscheduled cable repair work – and it came up at regular intervals.

And then there were the sundry issues to deal with - In one case a single principal was managing two institutions that were located 25 kilometers apart from each other – creating lots of coordination confusion. In another, we wasted a lot of time thinking that there was a power cut – but actually it turned out that the wires connected to electricity pole next to the venue had a loose connection. The windows to the hall of another institution were all stolen and used for firewood by the villagers! And there weren’t enough drama curtains to block the immense amount of light that came in.

And above all, I had to face stiff competition from the ‘science guys’, who kept haunting me off and on throughout my screening schedule. When I landed up in one school, I realized that the head master had also given the same appointment to my competitors. And because they showed an educational film called ‘How planes fly’, they were given preference and I had to pack my bags. It also did not help that I was an ex-student of the same school.

In Malpe, a village very close to the sea, the students were quite noisy. A strict physical trainer who herded the students branding a long cane, whispered to me that the ‘science guys’ had come a week back and the kids were very quite during the screenings because the films shown were dealing with the functioning of the human body – of both male and female. He was very sad that I was not making enough money through these screenings and suggested that the next time I come up with films that dealt with animal life – especially ones that showed their procreation.

But it is amazing to realize that in each of these screenings different audiences reacted almost similarly, to similar points in the film. They liked the spirit of the college going girl trying to be independent. They enjoyed the predicament of the rebellious college drop out who has no courage to do what he says. They loved most of the caesuras - points in a film that provide much needed pauses to the story line. They loved the Tulu dialogues – the typical phrases, sayings, similes and the metaphors used, all taken from every day life.

Of course, it did help when, during the mandatory introduction to the film, I made it a point to remind my young viewers that this film is not like the popular special effect movie 'Krishh', but is closer to ones own soil. The characters in the film might straight be out their own families or their neighborhood. Besides, I announced a competition for the kids – any write up on the film would stand a chance of winning a prize and getting into a proposed book or booklet on Tulu Cinema. The teachers, who had already heard about the film thanks to a publicity blitz that it had received after it won the best Indian Film award at the Osean Cinefan Festival of Asian Films, New Delhi in 2006, loved this academic touch and were very sympathetic.

Almost ninety percent of the educational institutions that volunteered to screen SUDDHA were either government colleges that had poor facilities or that which were financially unstable. An exception was the pre-university college in a village called Nitte where, amidst almost nowhere, exists a private campus that provides educational courses of all kinds. The kids here were taken to the comforts of a generator operated air conditioned auditorium where the neatly arranged seats and the total darkness provided a certain degree of formality that was absent in the classroom screenings in other educational institutions. Sitting in the comforts at the last row of the auditorium, I did not seem to miss the fact that I did not have a multiplex release of my film.

My last screening in this lot was in a girl’s college in Karkala. When we were packing up a after the screening, I was approached by a confidant young teenager named Hemalatha, who had earlier vigorously swept the hall almost single handedly to facilitate the screening. She had with her a note book and a pen. and She recalled an interview that I had given to the local All India Radio station some months back, had liked it and now wanted my autograph!

For a second I did not know how to react. But soon, I gathered myself and scribbled something in Kannada. She thanked me for giving her the opportunity to see ‘such a nice’ film and without wasting a second, she then disappeared into the corridors of her college.

That was how my first road show ended – on a note of acceptance.

That brings me back to the point - films like SUDDHA, which are slightly different from the mainstream cinema, does have an audience. We just do not have a financially self sufficient exhibition system to take these films to those to need to see it. To use business parlance, there could be the existence of many kinds of soaps in the market, and each of these soaps would be targeted to specific but different set of users. The marketing system of the soap distribution would allow such a co-existence. Not so in films.

The screenings of SUDDHA in coastal Karnataka cannot boast itself of being self sufficient in nature – in the sense that the screening costs are barely covered, leave alone the thought of generating some funding for your second film. But I do have the satisfaction of finding and creating an audience for my film through the large screen – something that was not available to me earlier. It was the least I could do, after having made the film!

In India, such road screenings are not entirely new. Historically, the state of Kerala in South India has been active in this regard. But the issue that is now scratching me is - can this ever be converted into a financially viable proposition?

My Experiments with an Alternate Screening System

At 1.00 A.M this morning, I had one of the strangest screenings in my life. An audience of around 650 Tulu speaking hotel laborers watched my Tulu digital feature film, SUDDHA (The Cleansing Rites) at the Vishweshwaraiya Auditorium, Matunga run by the Karnataka Sangha, Mumbai. Karnataka Sangha is one of the premium Kannada organizations culturally active in Mumbai.

Mumbai, as many of you are aware, is the home for ‘Udupi Hotels’ – eateries that provide cheap and affordable food stuff to the city’s population. Most of the management staff as well as the labor force in these hotels are migrants from the Tulu speaking coastal belt of Karnataka. Over the years many of these hotels have graduated to being Beer Bars and are often kept open, till late in the night. The Karnataka Sangha, apart from being responsible for thought provoking programs relating to music, literature and theater, also caters to the entertainment needs of these migrant hotel workers, by letting out its premises to either professional Yakshagana (a popular traditional folk form) troupes or semi-professional Tulu drama troupes, both from Coastal Karnataka.

It works like this – the shows start from 12.00 AM, in the wee hours of the morning. The Beer Bars close around this time. The migrant hotel workers can catch the last train after his work shift to watch these shows. The shows themselves go on till 6.00 AM. The workers can then go back to their respective hotels, catch up with their sleep so that they have enough time to get ready for their afternoon shift. It was my dream to get though to this audience.

‘Chiguru Chandana’, an organization in Mumbai, had arranged to stage a ‘super hit comedy’ play called ‘Porludaaye!’ or The Smart Man!, performed by ‘Lakumi’; a semi-professional troupe from Mangalore. The duration of such plays is normally flexible – from three to four hours, depending on the improvisation capabilities of the actors.

But today, ‘Porludaaye!’ was restricted to three hours for, before the play, they had arranged the screening of ‘the award winning’ film SUDDHA. Over the last two months SUDDHA was in the news all over the local Kannada press, and the organizers probably thought it will bring in the crowd.

Asha Marnad, an actress who had acted in SUDDHA and who had since then become a semi-professional theater artist in Mangalore, was also acting in ‘Porludaaye!’. A local kannada newspaper ‘Karnataka Malla’ carried an advertisement of the play. It also had an invite for the film. It screamed, ‘Award Winning Film... only one show… Watch our artist Asha Marnad in SUDDHA’.

The ticket rates for such plays are anywhere between Rs. 75/- to Rs.150/-. Sometimes, when the halls are empty, the organizers incur losses. The enterprising men who arrange such shows minimize their risks by getting hold of sponsors, who partly pay for the expenses. In return, their banner is prominently displayed at the venue and then some times, the play is stopped half way through and, in the wee hours in the morning, the sponsor is felicitated!

‘Chiguru Chandana’ was not only showing the play ‘Porludaaye!’, but it was also screening SUDDHA. Besides, it was also having a variety entertainment program during the interval. All these for a rate of Rs. 100/-, the tickets basically meant for the play. The screening of SUDDHA and the variety entertainment program was supposed to be free. Buy one, take two free! The capacity of the auditorium was 750 and there were around 650 people, mostly men, watching the movie. A few came late, but hardly anyone left the hall during the screening.

SUDDHA was always being branded as a film for the ‘classes’ or as a slow ‘art film’ that does not have a mass base. The award of the Best Indian film at the Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian Films at New Delhi in 2006, seems to have confirmed this view among a certain section of Kannada / Tulu film lovers. I firmly believe that films like SUDDHA have not managed to reach a large audience because there is no distribution system that will take such a film to an audience that wants to see it.

I am finding it difficult to find a conventional film distributor who would exhibit the film in regular theaters. For one, SUDDHA is in the digital format and there are hardly any digital theaters in the Tulu speaking areas in the country. And then a few reputed distributors whom I have been meeting over the last six months have refused to take up the film, quoting that ‘is not a commercial’ proposition and it does not have any ‘commercial elements’ in it.

I need to prove this wrong. SUDDHA talks about the changing life in Coastal Karnataka – of those living there and those who have migrated. It talks of these issues in a style that is uncomplicated and easy to understand, therefore making it identifiable to each and everyone who is associated with that area. The Tulu speaking people is my primary audience. I just have to take the film to them.

With a view to make the film accessible to the general public in a large systematic way, I approached the Mangalore University to evolve a self financing screening system in the 80 odd colleges affiliated with it. There was no response. I then approached the “Tulu Academy’ asking them if they could take up the exhibition of the film in the 290 Tulu speaking Gram Panchayats of Coastal Karnataka. Even if fifty people see the film in each screening, we are talking of an audience of close to 15,000. But being a government body that it is, the proposal was not accepted.

Not to be undone, I have been personally approaching various individual colleges through emails and conventional posts and through word-of-mouth recommendations. Yesterday, I have completed the process of writing snail mails to the president of 290 gram panchayats of Coastal Karnataka, with a strong plea for the screening of the film. The idea is to create a permanent structure through which other films could be screened.

And there is a lot to be explained. Many times in my communication to prospective screening organizers, I find myself explaining the entire process of digital projection. I have been telling them things like the kind of persons who would hire out digital projectors, about luminance of these projectors, about sound systems, about DVD players etc… Unless I do that, they would not be convinced by this new medium.

Already, till date, seven screenings have been held in eight colleges in Coastal Karnataka. Those colleges that have L.C.D. screening facilities with them are the first ones to screen SUDDHA. A few more have agreed for a screening in their colleges. A few ‘Youth Clubs’ are coming forward.

But I should be having at least 100 screenings before I can say that a system has been put into place.

Arwel, Media and HIV-AIDS at Shimla

Recently, I had the fortune of attending an electronic media workshop held in Shimla. It was conducted by the Cardiff based Thomson Foundation as a part of the European Union–India Media Initiative on HIV-AIDS. The workshop director was the inspirational Arwel Ellis Owen, also from Cardiff, UK. Arwel is the chairman of the British Academy of Film and TV Arts in Whales and in his distinguished career spanning over many decades, he was also the program head of the BBC in Northern Ireland.

There were eight participants in this workshop – people ranging from TV news reporters and news editors, radio programmers, documentary filmmakers and graphic artists. During this workshop, we had a chance to reflect upon the kind of coverage the electronic media has been giving to the HIV-AIDS issue in India, which I must say is not encouraging.

Around less than one present of our population is estimated to be having HIV, amounting to a very sizable number of around 5.7 million people! The implications are huge. If nothing is done and if more and more people fall sick due to HIV progressing into AIDS, imagine the impact it would have on our health care systems, our productivity, our budget allocation, our planning, our gross national income, and the development of our country as a whole – not to speak of the deteriorating quality of life of the people affected by HIV-AIDS!

Already, in a country like Swaziland in Africa, where one in every four members of the adult population is HIV positive, the economy is on the down slide. There aren’t enough healthy people to work and increase productivity. Each job has two appointees, lest the other falls sick. Any country that has a HIV prevalence of more than 1% finds it hard to attract foreign investment.

We have to act now, lest we follow the same route. Once inside the human body, HIV attacks, subverts and kills human cells – cells that help fight diseases, virus and other foreign bodies. This process may take years and during such a period persons infected with HIV may look perfectly normal. Therefore on an apparent level, the time bomb might not be seen to be clicking. But some years down the line the effect will manifest itself - unless of course, we intervene.

One of the prominent tools of intervention is to provide information and knowledge. The media plays an important role here. Yet, the media coverage given to the HIV-AIDS issue is hardly 1% of the total news covered. A recent report suggests that around 60% of our Members of Parliament are ignorant on how HIV spreads! If this is true, then we as journalists, as writers, as filmmakers and as artists have simply not done our job!

The health anchor of a 24 hour news channel, that has a ‘progressive’ image, does not know the difference between HIV and AIDS. A government owned TV channel shows a half hour fiction program on HIV-AIDS with a hidden agenda to cause ‘fear’ about the epidemic in the minds of the people – equating AIDS with untimely and inevitable death! Another private channel repeatedly airs the story of a HIV positive woman where she expresses her desire to end her life and shows us the permission seeking application that she has written to our President, as a sensationalized breaking investigative story!

Reports about HIV-AIDS patients appearing in the media have exposed their medical status to everyone in their environment and thus made them vulnerable to rampant stigma and discrimination! Some of them have been boycotted by their own families, communities and villages. Others have been unjustly given the pink slip by their employers or they have been removed from their rented houses or have been refused treatment at hospitals!

‘AIDS patient stoned to death’ – might be an eye catching headline. It can catch the eyeballs. But is it an in-depth report asking the whys and the whens and the whats of the issue? Or is it just sensationalizing and therefore trivializing the matter, as ever other news is done today?

Tabloids are a rage and even television ‘tabloidism’ is catching up. A Hindi film actor’s sex life and preferences are shown repeatedly on TV, as if it is of great national importance. So much so that in another story, a husband-wife-lover trio makes an issue of and debate over their extra-marital life, live on TV!

A consistent and responsible reporting of events and all relevant issues concerning HIV-AIDS would do well for those who are affected by the virus. At present, if there is anything that is missing, then this is it.

The Media Workshop in Shimla has sensitized at least eight media people into this.

Making of a Digital Film - My Experience

Way back in 1991, after having graduated from the F.T.I.I., I shot a self-financed short film, in 16mm, called ‘The Hot Shot’. I had made the film the way I wanted to and with my own money. The film went to a couple of film festivals and nothing came out of it – except the fact that I had lost around 25,000/- in the making of the film.

For the next twelve years I immersed myself into TV work and had almost forgotten what filmmaking is all about – till one fine morning I woke up with a realization that I had not done anything worthwhile in all these years. I had forgotten the very context that I had set on my own life! It was time to shake oneself out of one’s guts.

It was in 2004 that I brought my digital video camera. Though the idea was to hire it out so that I repay back the loan that I had taken for its purchase, the other motivating factor was that I could make my own digital films.

Initially, I decided to make some shorts. There was still no market for the short fiction film in India – there still isn’t. But the heartening fact was that short films were being made–and their number was increasing. The low cost nature of this new age digital format was mainly responsible for it.

It was time to reinvent myself. I quickly came to terms with the digital-celluloid divide – debate that is still in rage. There are certain things possible on the celluloid, which is not possible in the digital and visa versa. The two of them simply cannot be judged against each other.

I made three short films within a span of two years – two fictions and a documentary. This time I made sure that I did not spend the kind of amount that I had done years back. I knew that there was no market for the short fiction film and worked accordingly. And I made those films more or less the way I wanted them to be.

My friend edited my first short fiction film in his home computer. By the time I was making my third short film, I had my own edit set up– a capture card worth 5,000/- on a Pentium III with a 126 MB ram! The films did go to some short film festivals – national and international. The short documentary even recovered its costs!

I was then on the look out for a story that could be made into a low cost digital feature film – stories that have few locations, few characters and the likes. Language was not the issue. I stumbled upon Narayana Nandalike’s Tulu play ‘Bojja’ – a play that depicted the changing life patters in modern day coastal Karnataka.

The associate director for my Kannada TV programs, Surendra Kumar, had earlier mentioned that we could shoot around his house in his native village Marnad, if I had any script in my mind. This was it! We were going to make a digital film and its name was going to be SUDDHA.

Of the many part-time film financers we met, one agreed to fund the film. But he backed off at the last moment – for I guess, he was not impressed by the returns that we had projected. Frankly, I was also not sure how would a Tulu digital film like SUDDHA recover it money.

I reworked the production logistics and even the script. We cut characters, cut mikes, avoided artificial lights and even cut the number of shooting days. The budget that was thus worked out was so pathetic that it could now be financed by just the three of us – me, Surendra and Mohan Marnad, who by now was on board.

But there were a few issues. There is a general tendency prevalent today that a digital film should be wacky, should have shaky camera, handheld tracks, jump cuts, a lot of blurs, and should have heavy video effects and the likes. The temptation was great. For one, such a style of filming had the probability of drastically reducing the number of shooting days. Over the world, there were occasions where digital feature films were shot in 24 hours, using this style. Fortunately, I did not succumb.

The second - I was limiting myself in all respects, mainly due to the budget factor. Right at the raw stock stage, I decided to go for the inexpensive Mini DV tape, rather than the DV Cam tapes. Also, the Mini DV tapes would run on the mini DV mode and not the DV Cam mode – thereby increasing the tape time by about twenty minutes. And then there were no artificial lights, no professional actors, no boom men, no light boys etc.

Would all these affect the quality of the film? Was it ‘compromise’ – with all the horrible meanings that are generally associated with it? A friend of mine was even quick enough to comment that my choice of making a film digitally itself was a ‘terrible’ compromise.

But a quick research into the Dogma movement redeemed me. The dogma guys set some self imposed and almost silly looking limitations on themselves – no lights, no sets etc. The idea was to see if they could make the films that they wanted to, adhering to these limitations.

My limitations were mostly budget imposed. Could I make my film under those limitations? The choice was between making the film and not making it. I choose to make it – and to my surprise, the limitations no longer remained so. The rawness of the amateur actors, the magical quality of the available lights and the variations in the voices recorded on location became an advantage.

The fact that I was using a low cost Mini DV tape too helped. The inexperience actors were taking an average of ten to twelve takes to give an okay shot. By these standards, had I shot on celluloid, the film would have never got made.

The digital era has made filmmaking accessible to everyone. Today, someone sitting in a remote village in Hattiangadi village in Kundapur can also think of making a digital film. All he has to do is write a script, get hold of a few local actors, and execute the script. A wide range of digital cameras – from single CCDs to HDVs are available to him. He can commit mistakes, come back, watch them and re-shoot entire portions with minimum costs. He can even think of editing the film in his own personal computer.

So, if you want, you can. More and more Film Festivals are looking at digital feature films. I see SUDDHA’s recognition at the recently held Osian Cinefan Festival of Asian Films, as a validation of digital feature filmmaking in India. Even in a country like Philippines, hordes of digital feature films are shot every year. Of these, I was told, around 10% of them are taken up by the mainstream industry for a theatrical release!

But would that happen in India? How do I exhibit a feature film like SUDDHA? My letters to a private TV station regarding a possible telecast of SUDDHA has evoked no response. I guess their priorities are the ‘mother-in-law and daughter-in-law’ serials.

Although there are a few theaters that project films digitally, they are used only to release big budget films, for a simultaneously all-India-release, with less celluloid prints. At present, the distributors are not too keen to look at digitally shot films for digital projection. But I guess it is a matter of time.

But till then, we have to find alternative modes of exhibition.

Is it possible for us to use the college network of our universities? If self-sustaining regular screenings of different digital films – fiction and non fiction - could be arranged in each of the colleges affiliated with the universities, the students of these colleges could have an alternative set of films that they could see. Some of the colleges and universities already have film clubs and are even making short digital films. The mass communication departments could do well to take a lead in this aspect, for by doing so, they would be providing a platform for the very students that graduate out of their institutions.

Also, is it possible for us to arrange screenings of digital films in the various Zilla / Gram Panchayats? Even if fifty people (a conservative number) come to watch a movie in each of the gram panchayats, in a district like Dakshina Kannada itself, around 10,000 people would have seen the film! Can a business model be worked out on these lines by an enterprising individual or corporate body?

Alternatively, with a little grant or subsidy from the government and with some support from the organizational structure that it has, this could well be a reality. If for example The Tulu Academy, under the Kannada and Culture department, takes up the exhibition of low cost Tulu films using the Zilla Panchayat network in Coastal Karnataka, a large number of people can get access to such films.

And if The Academy could work out a self sustaining system where it gets remuneration from the Gram Panchayats either through viewer’s donation or through local sponsors, and give a portion of the proceeds to the filmmakers for their next film, a truly low cost Tulu digital cinema can well be on its way. Imagine this scheme being replicated in all districts of Karnataka in their respective dialects!

The information department already has a grass root-level-digital-exhibition system in place where it educates the general public regarding the various government programs. Should this existing system be strengthened for the exhibition of digital films or should a new system be put into place, is a matter that can be debated.

But first, there should be a will.

Despite all odds, if Ninasam’s experiments at Heggodu and with Thirugata can work, why not this? Already, in Delhi, the SPIC MACAY is considering alternative digital exhibition modes in the 1700 colleges that it has under its wings. Closer home, an NGO called ‘Namma Bhoomi’ is toying with the idea of showing ‘Samskara’ in the various Gram Panchayats in Kundaapur, using digital projection.

The possibilities, as we see, are immense.

Kanaka Dasa, Jayamala and the cool dude with a long beard…

My home town Udupi, is one of the prominent pilgrim centers in Coastal Karnataka. Everyday thousands of tourists from all over India flock here to visit the Krishna Temple, whose idol – that of a standing Krishna holding a churning stick - was installed seven hundred years ago by the Brahmin saint and philosopher, Madvacharya – the doyen of Dwaitha or the Dualistic Philosophy. There are eight mutts or religious institutions here that manage this temple, taking turn once every two years. Needless to say, the atmosphere around these eight mutts fluctuates between the rigidly religious and the extreme orthodox.

Over the years, many saint poets belonging to the Bakthi tradition have taken their faith, through their simple poems, to the masses. Such activities wee centered aound the Krishna Temple and its asthetic idol. Purandara Dasa and Kanaka Dasa were exemplary among such poets.

Kanaka Dasa belonged to the lower caste. He is revered today, his songs officially sung inside the Krishna Temple. But it is sheer irony that a few centuries back, during his own life time; he was not even allowed into the Temple. The authorities had then believed that the temple had to be purified if a lower caste entered its premises. But Kanaka Dasa’s faith in Krishna, apparently, was unshakable. Outside the temple, in front of its wall, he sang songs to the glory of the deity.

The legend goes that the great lord himself was so moved by Kanaka Dasa’s faith that a portion of the temple wall broke down, on its own. The idol then did a 180 degree turn, as if it was on a rotating machine used commonly in the making of advertisement films these days, so that it could be visible to Kanaka Dasa. From that day onwards, it is said; members of the lower caste are allowed into the temple.

I saw a news item on a TV channel yesterday that reminded me of Kanaka Dasa. It was about the Kannada film actress Jayamala’s confession. Twenty years back, when her then husband was sick, she had gone into the inner most shrine of the temple of Ayyappa in Shabarimalai hills in Kerala, and had touched the deity’s feet, seeking his blessings. Her then husband apparently got better after those prayers. Well, what’s wrong?

What’s wrong is that Ayyappa is a bachelor god. For ages, the temple authorities had banned young women from entering the temple premises, lest the lord himself was offended! Jayamala was all of twenty seven years when she touched Ayyappa’s feet. She was a popular film actress, ‘enticing’ many a good looking heroes on the silver screen and a thousand of fans beyond it!

Some times we don’t tend to believe anyone, not even our gods! But I’ll keep mum on that front.

That apart, twenty years down the line, Jayamala felt that what she then did was a mistake. So, she called up the temple authorities and confessed. She wrote an apology letter to the good lord himself and faxed it to his 'abode' in Shabarimalai. But what she did not bargain was for a press leakage and the resultant controversy.

Did the priests inside the temple help Jayamala go into the inner shrine? Like Jayamala, over the years, were other women allowed into the inner shrine? We known for a fact that the Late Indira Gandhi, despite being the Prime Minister of our country, was barred from going inside. But now that it is official that a woman has touched the Ayyappa idol, will the purification of the temple take two years as it is rumored to? Will the temple authorities go to the court against Jayamala?

I have heard Jayamala stating on a news channel that she has authentically apologized to the good lord himself and that she need not apologies to any one else, least of all to the temple authorities. If needed she is ready to go to jail or face the consequences for the act she had done years back.

This for me is crucial.

It takes a great amount of courage and inner strength to own up and take responsibility to ones mistakes or what ones thinks as ones mistakes. The act of owning up gives you an opportunity to be complete with your past and therefore with yourself. It therefore allows you to move ahead, afresh.

Centuries back, post Kanaka Dasa, the temple authorities in Udupi showed great courage in letting its lower caste devotes into its premises. Every religion, in some of its rituals and practices, encourages such ‘owning up’ within its structure. It would be a pity if the temple authorities in Kerala, or for that matter anywhere else, did not acknowledge this.

Not allowing someone into the inner shrine of a temple because of their sexuality may seem to fall purely be under the jurisdiction of the respective temple authorities. On second thoughts, is it? Do we smell of some violation of a fundamental right here?

Having said all and done, I must admit that I simply can’t understand a few little things here. Forgive me for my ignorance, but I still can’t figure out for example - Why did Kanaka Dasa have to adamantly sing songs in front of a stone wall? Didn’t he have anything else to do? Or why did Jayamala have to touch the feet of the Ayyappa idol to pray for her then husband? Where had all the doctors gone? Or closer home, why should my wife Sushma insist that we go to the Krishna Temple every time we visit my parents at Udupi? Isn’t there a beach nearby to spend some quality time?

As the cool dude with a long beard once said – Its religion, man! It is really the opium of the masses, man!

Confessions of a die hard fan…

Like many others in this country, I too was appalled by the violence that shook the city of Bengaluru on the aftermath of the death of the Kannada actor, superstar and icon Dr. Rajkumar. Who and what caused this violence? Was it just an emotional reaction or did people with vested interests plan it all? These are questions whose answers are probably buried deep within the maze of files that dot Vidhana Saudha in Bengaluru. But the incident has triggered off certain memories that I had with the ‘legendary’ Dr. Rajkumar. I have never met Dr. Rajkumar in my life. Yet I was a die-hard fan of his.

Historians in my family say that, as a tiny tot, one of the first films that I saw was in a make shift theater in Kundaapur. The film was ‘Emme Thammanna’ or ‘Buffalo Thammanna'. And guess who was the hero? Right, it was our own Annavaru (Elder Brother) or Dr. Rajkumar. Through my own little research later on in my life, I have gathered that the film was about a simpleton called Thammanna whose job was to herd buffaloes in a remote village. It seems that I had taken a liking to this film and it’s songs. For a few days of in my life, I had the misfortune of even being nicknamed as ‘Emme Thammanna’. Years later, when in school, whenever I got ‘just-passed’ marks in a couple of subjects that I didn’t take a liking to, I was chided – ‘You can herd buffaloes and be an ‘Emme Thammanna’!’

But my tryst with Rajkumar took a serious turn only when I was a school going kid in Udupi. My cousins Ravi and Shantaram were the first ones to be impressed with his movies or shall I say, persona. Rajkumar was already a well-established hero in the Kannada film industry by then and had shifted to playing swashbuckling roles as a crime buster. His initial forays into movies were through mythological and historical characters. He then shifted to the social genre playing roles mainly of a simple and honest villager, who fought against feudal oppression. But we as kids were impressed by a string of ‘CID’ films that he had recently popularized. These films caught the fancies of an entire generation of kids like me.

I was never allowed to see these ‘CID’ films because the moral custodians of my family felt that these films had a lot of violence and were therefore not meant for kids. But nevertheless, we were all excited. News of Rajkumar’s films used to filter down to us from friends or friends of friends who had seen some of his movies. Stories used to be exchanged – as to how in this film Rajkumar did this and how in that film Rajkumar did that.

He was a super hero. He could do no wrong. He always sided with the downtrodden. He respected elders and loved kids. He could always win a verbal duel, bash up tough looking villains or tame sharp-tongued heroines – all with equal ease. He knew how to fight, how to use a gun and had a great sense of wit. He was smart, but could act dumb if he wanted to. Despite being a James Bond-like spy, the glass in his hand always had a fruit juice in it and not alcohol. Cigarettes were a big no-no. Traditional values imbibed in him, yet he could be as modern as anyone else. And above all, as they say in some movie titles cards, he loved Kannada and the Kannada land. He was a sort of person who would die-hard for anything that is remotely connected with Kannada – his songs said so.

So excited we were about our superhero that we used to pick fights against anyone who said anything against Rajkumar. And believe me, mischief-makers within our extended family used to toy with our emotions. They used to deliberately say – ‘Your Rajkumar is a very bad actor!’ or ‘Your Rajkumar gets bashed up badly in his latest film!’ It was sufficient for we cousins to pick up a fight with them and sometimes even get violent!

‘Gandhada Gudi’ or ‘The Sandalwood Abode’ was one of Rajkumar’s landmark movies. It had another star-actor of the Kannada film industry called Vishnuvardhan. The film’s climax needed Vishnuvardhan to shoot at Rajkumar with a gun. During the filming of this sequence, it was rumored that a bullet actually went off Vishnuvardhan’s gun, missing Rajkumar by a few inches. Rajkumar fans protested all over Karnataka and I believe Vishnuvardhan had to take security cover for some days. As far as me, for a long time I hated Vishnuvardhan for what he could have done to my favorite hero.

Both Ravi and Shantaram came out of their Rajkumar trip quite soon. Ravi, I don’t know what made him do so, but Shantaram – I came to know later – was disillusioned to learn that Rajkumar’s age was same as his fathers! Just how could a man of his father’s age sing and dance around with heroines who are half his age? Shantaram began concentrating on his studies – but I continued being a die-hard fan of ‘namma annavaru’ or ‘our elder brother’. Needless to say, Shantaram is in the United States working happily as a software engineer and I am here in Mumbai still struggling to make films that don’t look like Rajkumar’s films.

We were then transferred to Dharwad. The craze among kids of our age group was to see films on the first day and first show. By now, I was allowed to see Rajkumar movies, but not on the first day. It was too much of a risk, the security department of my family had decided. There were newspaper reports emitting from Bengaluru on how people had taken up to violence when they did not get tickets to watch their favorite Rajkumar movie on the first day-first show. They simply broke glasses and burnt government busses to vent out their frustrations.

But I did manage to see a first day-first show of a Rajkumar film. After all, I was in the eighth standard and was a big boy! The film in question was ‘Shankar-Guru’. It was a great sense of achievement to do so. There already was a certain amount of hype to the film – that Rajkumar was playing two roles that of Shankar and of Guru. One was a bad conman and the other was good police inspector. And they were twins separated at birth! Sometime, if I get the opportunity, I would like to revisit the film – if nothing else but to clear my doubt if Rajkumar played the role of the father too!

And then one day, while we were still in Dharwad, I came to know that Rajkumar was in town. Without informing my parents, along with my few friends, I rushed to ‘Hotel Dharwad’, the place where he was put up. A large expectant crowd had gathered at the gate. I too was desperate to get a glimpse of my idol. After a long wait, a man came out of his room to his balcony and waved his hands to the crowd. I would by lying if I said that I was not disappointed.

Here was my idol - in a plain dhothi and a simple almost crumpled white shirt, half bald and waving to us with a tired smile. Was he the swashbuckling superhero that I knew off? After a few seconds he went inside and closed his door. And I started walking back home.

Later, when we were in Udupi for holidays, it was rumored that Aarthi, a Kannada film actress was in town to attend a marriage. Old habits die-hard! I wanted to see her, despite my cousin Ravi’s advice. ‘She is dark!’ he had said. But I went ahead. There were many more glamour struck guys of my types at the hotel. All of us waited for her to come out and show her beautiful self. And then finally when she came out, it turned out that she was indeed dark. She had looked beautiful in her movies. What was wrong with her now?

Some of her fans asked her to sing a song, which she did reluctantly. That moment was one of the most decisive moments of my life. Her song was out of tune; it had neither scale nor pitch. She sang two lines, stopped and apologized for her bad singing. It was nowhere like it was in the movies. ‘We don’t sing them ourselves’, she had said. To my horror, people booed her. That day, probably for the first time in my life, I could manage to differentiate between the image and what was beyond the image.

The closest I got to be realistically associated with Rajkumar was when the late Chi. Udayashankar, a top Kannada script and dialogue writer during his time, asked me if I would like to work in the Rajkumar camp or Vishnuvardhan camp. I had just completed my film studies at the film institute in Poona and I had thought I’d settle down in Bengaluru. Udayshankar used to hire a room in ‘Hotel Jhanardhan’ – an establishment owned by my uncle - to write his scripts. I selected the Vishnuvardhan camp and I still don’t know why! That I left Bengaluru after working for just one schedule of twenty days in a Vishnuvardhan camp film is a different story all together.

For old times sake, I still sometimes see Rajkumar’s movies that are shown on Kannada Channels, aired in Mumbai. Those are the times, I wonder, how come this actor who always overdoes his roles and hams a lot, has managed to hold his audience captive for such a long period time? Is it because he had consciously built an image (and therefore an industry) around himself that people mistake for the real self? MGR, NTR, Jayalalita and a host of other actors have managed to piggybank on their respective images, thrived on regionalism and have ruled states.

Rajkumar, people say, was never inclined towards politics. But he did plunge himself into the ‘Gokak Agitation’ – an agitation that fought for the Kannada language. It maybe true that the agitation gained momentum after the superstar lent his support to it. Conversely maybe it is also true that the agitation too had helped Rajkumar to maintain and further the momentum of the image that he had so carefully developed during his time. Can it be said that the Gokak agitation propelled his image, his films and his career?

I am writing this within the anonymous comforts that the city of Mumbai provides to me. If I were in Bengaluru, die-hard Rajkumar fans would have probably lynched me for holding this opinion – like they lynched those policemen immediately after Rajkumar’s death. Even if I were to shout at the top of my voice, they probably wouldn't even consider the fact that I too was once a die-hard Rajkumar fan!

A Courtyard Screening

For almost a year after I shot my Tulu film SUDDHA I did not go to Moodbidri, the place where I had shot it। My associate Surendra Kumar, who like me is also stationed in Mumbai, had been pestered by enquiries by local actors who had acted in the film. So, when I completed the film, we decided go to Moodbidri, to quench their thirst. Subhash Padiwaal, one of our actors, had agreed to arrange a screening, in his house.

A two hours ride on the three o’clock express bus that left Udupi, where I had gone to attend a cousin’s marriage, took me to Moodbidri। After a quick coffee with Surendra, who had gone there a day before me, we boarded another bus। Half an hour later, at our destination, we were greeted by a smiling Subash Padiwaal, some sweet ginger juice, an incessant local journalist who was pitching in for the non existent post of a PRO of my film and last but not the least, a deafening power cut। Tuesdays was the official power cut day in the area. We were supposed to start the screening at seven in the evening, by which time the power would have been restored, Subhash Padiwaal had assured us. He had made the best of arrangements.

A pandal made out of dry coconut leaves, locally called ‘chappara’, had been constructed in his courtyard. He had hired a few chairs. His 21-inch TV was to be used for the screening. And I was told that he had also arranged for some snacks and sweets. ‘Bonda', one of item that is to be served, is on our behalf’, quickly added Surendra, not to be undone.

While waiting for the power to be restored, we visited the nearby temple, managed by the Padiwaal family. The family spends around twenty thousand rupees a year just to conduct the annual temple ritual called kola. Subhash Padiwaal’s family was an erstwhile feudal landlord family which once owned a few nearby villages. ‘The story of my family is quite similar to the story told in your film’, confessed Subhash Padiwaal. SUDDHA dealt with the decay of the feudal mentality of erstwhile landlord families in Coastal Karnataka and their reluctance to accept changing social norms.

Decades ago, such families offered patronage to local folk arts like Yakshagana and different forms of puppetry. Performances were held in the courtyards of their houses. By sponsoring the screening of our film in his courtyard, Subhash Padiwaal was keeping alive such a tradition. The irony was not lost on me.

As darkness engulfed the Padiwaal courtyard, the wannabe PRO started drilling me with some questions, in the guise of an interview. By then the actors started coming. They too grilled – ‘What took you so long to complete the film?’ ‘Did you find any sponsor?’ ‘I thought the film would not see the light of the day’ ‘Why not have the screening in Moodbidri town itself?’

Fortunately the power came right at seven. We decided that the screening would be held in the very room where they had kept the TV, for I did not want the natural sound ambience of the courtyard to affect the sounds that I had designed in the film. An excited audience cramped into the room, sitting on sofas, chairs and tables; and even on the floor. Some stood at the back, shouting at people not to block their views. Among those were men and women who worked in the fields of the Padiwaal family; who are traditionally not allowed into the inner sanctity of the house. It took some time for all of them to settle down. ‘What a start!’ I cursed myself.

And then, five minutes down the film, just when I thought that the audience were getting involved in the film, the light went off again! ‘There is some repairs going on nearby’, I was told. Suddenly I an elderly man went up to the phone to call someone, pleading for a power restoration. He was the private contractor attached to the electric department responsible for the day’s repairs. He was one among the audience, for his daughter too had acted in the film. ‘In a few minutes...’ he declared.

Utilizing the time, Subhash Padiwaal and his family served us snacks. That was when we realized that there were around a seventy of us. We had just planned for an audience of twenty, but the word had spread. Although each one of us got just half a sweet, half a bonda and a peg of coffee, I felt secured for it reflected that there are people who wanted to see my film!

When the power finally came, it was decided, by public demand, that the TV be taken outside. There were far too may people wanting to watch the film. The audience themselves arranged the chairs under the पंडाल, I raised the volume of the TV to the maximum level that I could and left the rest, as they say, to the gods - even though I hardly believe in a whole lot of them.

For the next fifty minutes, the screening went off well. The audience reacted generously. It was music to my ears. But there was one thing that bothered me - Subhash Padiwaal’s courtyard had it’s own sound ambience. Night crickets shrilled through the darkness that evening, merging their voices with the sounds effects that I had orchestrated into the film. At one point even I got confused, was the sound coming from the TV or was it the natural sound ambience? Fortunately the audience did not notice it.

And then the light went off again, for the third time! ‘It is a major repair’ I was told this time. Some members in the audience almost ordered the electric contractor to make the necessary phone calls. This time the contractor was reluctant, for restoring power would be a hindrance to his business. But the audience was determined. It was already nine in the night and it would be difficult for them to go home, if it got late. Besides, Subhash Padiwaal had not foreseen such a problem for, if he had, he would have surely arranged for dinner for the whole lot of us!

Suddenly, as if by public demand, the power came all by itself, saving everyone the blues.

The rest of the film went off without any interruptions. It was 10’ clock when the film got over. There was not much of a heavy-duty discussion about the film, for every one had to go back to their homes to have their respective dinners. But from whatever little people spoke about, I was glad that they actually liked the film; some had even noticed my sound design!

The highlight of the post screening secession, much to my embarrassment, was that in a moment of inspiration, one of the actress’ of the film went to the extent of touching my feet, much to the amusement of Surendra!

SUDDHA is a leisurely paced film that has no music in it। It is constructed only through the natural sound effects that echo in the silent villages in Coastal Karnataka. It does not have those elements, often used in the mainstream cinema that would mesmerize the audience’s mind, strangle them and hold them captive. But the audience in Moodbidri watched the film, I would say, without any pre-conceived notions or prejudices. They took the film for what it is. I was thrilled for, contrary to what some people had to say after watching the trials in Mumbai; there was indeed a receptive common village audience for my film! Back in Mumbai, Surendra still giggles around when he jokes about the ‘inspired’ lady touching my feet at Moodbidri!

The Sight and Sound of Jogeshwari East

Sushma, my wife, had agreed upon this one bedroom-kitchen-hall abode that we are presently residing, mainly because our colony, Satellite Park, has a lot of open spaces – a rare commodity in a land starved city like Mumbai. Besides, it is just a stone’s throw away from the Jogeshwari Railway Station. But after having lived here for over a year, I have no option but to conclude that it takes some sort of courage to make an existence here. For example, I can say, with a certain degree of confidence, that only the strong willed and the brave hearted can manage to complete the short but adventurous journey from the Jogeshwari Railway Station to my house at Satellite Park.

The ordeal starts right away when you get down from an auto at S.V. Road, near the railway crossing in Jogeshwari West. But before you can even think of getting down, you might encounter some quick-reflexed passengers trying to get into your auto to grab seats. If you are not fast enough, you might just be pushed out! These are the guys who want to share an auto with like-minded passengers to areas like Behraum Baug, for it costs as much as a bus ride and is faster.

A valuable bit of advice after you get down from the auto is to turn a blind eye to any vehicle that might stop right in front of your nose. Act dumb to the driver’s abuses and head directly to the railway crossing. To facilitate the speedy flow of the peak hours local train traffic, the Jogeshwari crossing is made non functional for twice a day for two hour each. Sensing immense business opportunities, many roadside vendors set tables and spread blankets right on the middle of the road. They spread their goods, ranging anything from cheap shirts to plastic watches to ultra red apples. During these times, you have no option but to wade through their goods. You better be a good navigator, for if you step on any of those goods you have had it!

During the rest of the day, when the rail crossing is functional, these vendors would be gone for sure, but there would be umpteen smoke emitting vehicles, some times huge fat old lorries, waiting to get over to the other side. You would then be forced onto the narrow footpaths, or should I say whatever is left of the footpaths - because these footpaths themselves are encroached by the licensed shopkeepers. In the process don’t worry if any of the speeding bikes hit you, there are two medical shops right there!

When you finally reach the railway crossing a feeling of achievement may erupt in you – a feeling of having won an Olympic marathon. But beware! The battle has just begun. Make sure that you don’t get under the crossing gates while it is being closed, for they might break your heads. Pray your stars and begin the next step of your journey – which is to actually cross the railway tracks.

This leg of your journey is very easy. If you forget to look over your shoulders to spot the speeding trains, you can be assured that you will hear yells from your fellow travelers. Whenever you hear such yells you can blindly stop wherever you are and be safe – except of course if you are right at the center of the track in which the train is coming. And be prepared to see some broken skulls, real blood and curious types watching fellow travelers hit by some moving train, dying a painful death. Needless to say, sometimes a white Maruthi ambulance, donated by a nameless well-wisher, stands alone near the ticket counter at the other end of the railway crossing. Wonder what is it doing there.

Ah yes... one important tip while crossing the tracks, especially the long distance ones, is to be careful of the human waste that is thrown outside the lavatories of traveling trains. This is really crucial. Otherwise you might end up transferring some human shit onto wherever you go, thanks to your sticky shoes! Before I forget, let me tell you that you can also climb up the footbridge to cross over the tracks, avoiding the umpteen beggars housed there. But I would bet that, like me, you too would neither be having the time nor patience to do that. It is very human to take grave risks!

If you find yourself alive after having crossed the by now not-so-dangerous-railway tracks, consider yourself to be damn lucky. But the ordeal is not yet over. To come to my house at Satellite Park, you have to now ‘swim’ through the innumerable vegetable and fruits vendors encroaching upon the road that will leads you to the Western Express Highway! I use the word ‘swim’ because during the monsoons, this low-line area is always water logged. In the September floods this year, the water levels had almost reached chest height! But even in such situations you need not worry because there would always be drunken volunteers who would hold ropes to guide you – as if they are helping you cross a river in the Amazon forests.

But during the dry days, if you are in a footpath-shopping mood, you can have a variety of choices - Flowers, banana leaves, newspapers, balloons, false mustaches, mehendi, tender coconuts, blouse pieces, mobile phones, sugarcane juice, incense sticks, lottery tickets, rat poisons – you name it and it is there. But I should confess that, although I am not an avid footpath shopper, a couple of desi fast food joints selling vada paavs, samosas and other spicy stuff look tempting, despite the fact that they have caused infections in my system every time I ate them or sometimes, even if I had the thought of eating them!

A few steps into this on-the-road-supermarket and you will find a road divider. The best way to travel into our colony from this point is to walk right at the center of this road divider. No vehicle would crush you. No person would brush you. You can even increase the pace of your walk. A few months down the line, I can’t assure you of this, because your fellow travelers would know this secrete and the divider then would be as crowded as the road or the footpaths, or whatever is left of the footpaths!

When the divider ends, you take a left into the only official shopping complex of Jogeshwari East. Behind this complex is the Satellite Housing colony–with its open space and refreshing breeze. ‘This is bliss’, you may feel and you are right. There are no vehicles that would crush your toe, no one coming from the opposite side who would dash against you and no vendors screaming at your ears. Only the green campus of the Ismail College that is right opposite our colony is better than this bliss.

Once inside the colony you can walk peacefully and come into my house at B 603. I normally enjoy this last leg of my journey. And believe me, there is nothing like stretching your tired legs in your own house after hard day’s adventurous journey.

Meaning Making Machines

The other day, I showed my 105 minutes Tulu film SUDDHA to a few friends in Mumbai. Among the viewers was Srinivas Jokatte, a Mumbai based Kannada short story writer and journalist at ‘Karnataka Malla’, a Mumbai Kannada newspaper. After seeing the film one of his reaction was that it is an “Art Film” and some of the subtleties that such ‘Art Films’ would posses might not work with ordinary filmgoers. He gave examples of some ‘Art Films’ that had come from Bangalore at the height of the New Wave Movement a few decades back. ‘People did not understand what the filmmakers were trying to say’ he lamented. He added quickly, ‘There is no such communication issues with your film, but will the layman get the meaning of, for example, the general village shots that you have inserted between various sequences?’

In SUDDHA, as an editing pattern, there are some general village shots that I had inserted in between some key sequences. These are shots showing villagers going about in their daily routine. They have very little connection in the main plot. A man ploughs his fields, another climbs a coconut tree, a kid goes to her school, a woman scraps some coconuts etc… Shots like these act as a transition between sequences. They give the necessary breaks amidst the ever-talking characters.

One of Jokatte’s observations was that these shots were unnecessary to the film because they were ‘meaningless’ and that they did not add anything to the main story of the film. Within these statements lie the fundamentals of how we generally approach the process of watching and experiencing a film. Thanks to the trigger ignited by the ever sensitive and incorrigible Jokatte, I now am able to formulate my thoughts regarding an issue that has bogged me down for quite some days now.

We are all, as the saying goes, meaning making machines. Generally, it is my observation that human mind tends to assign meanings to what ever it sees and experiences. Thus, if a politician sits on his chair, the chair may be taken as a symbol of ‘power’. If your subordinate happens to question you, it maybe considered by you that he lacks respect for his superiors. A husband might doubt his wife if she enjoys a joke with one of her male colleague over the phone.

If we separate the fact from fiction, the only reality that can be assumed is that the politician did sit on his chair, the subordinate had posed a question to you and the wife had laughed at the joke that her male colleague had uttered. These facts by themselves do not mean anything or they do not have an inherent meaning attached to them. The meanings and interpretations are assigned in our own minds. Thus, a simple chair becomes a symbol for ‘power’, a simple question from your subordinate may become termed as ‘arrogance’ and your wife’s simple laugh might be interpreted as ‘infidelity’!

Going by this, it is natural to assume that our mind indulges in such ‘meaning creation’ while watching a film. Very long back, when still in college, I had gone to a ten-day film appreciation course that was being conducted by K.V. Subanna’s Ninasam in Heggodu, Karnataka. A well-known Kannada writer, who was my co-participant in the course, was very impressed by a sequence in a film where the heroin had placed her hand into the mouth of an anthill. For him, the act ‘meant’ that she was sexually unsatisfied. Maybe the filmmaker might have meant that, or maybe he did not. The point I am making is not if the interpretation of the well-known writer is right or not, but the fact that we always assign meanings to works of art.

While it is not ‘wrong’ to assign such meanings, it is just one of the approaches we could be taking while watching a film or a work of art. There might be a film or a painting or a drama, which would need an altogether different approach of experiencing it. Sometimes, change has the ability to unsettle even the strongest.

So in SUDDHA when I do not assign any meanings to all those village shots, except perhaps what is being experienced, I have noticed that people do get worried! What do these shots ‘mean’? Why do you shown a woman bathing her child in between those two sequences? How does it carry forward the story? Why have kept the shot so long? Is there any ‘meaning’?

My question is – is there any which way that we can stop assigning significant ‘meanings’ to everything and anything we experience during the process of watching a film? Is it possible that we just ‘be’ with the film and it’s characters, their dialogues, movements and their emotions without giving any ‘meanings’ to them? Can we ‘be’ with the pace of the film, the sounds of the film, the camera movements of the film, the cuts of the film without giving any ‘meanings’ to them?

Is it possible to experience a film just as we experience music?

What ‘meanings’ do we assign to a classical Bhajan that Bhimsen Joshi sings? Even if the listener does not know anything about Ragas, Talas, Shruti and other technicalities that music imbibes in itself, does he not appreciate the music? One can’t appreciate music unless you are actually ‘listening’ to it and ‘being’ with the voice that is thrown at you. In fact, if at all one started to assign ‘meanings’ to Bhimsen Joshi’s voice modulations; one could never ‘be’ with the music. One would therefore loose the very essence of the music and the rasa it would have generated.

Having said that, I do know that it is probably relatively easy to ‘be’ with the musician, than to ‘be’ with a film - because what Bhimsen Joshi sings are abstract voice throws. Where as, what we see in a film or in a drama is concrete stuff that one can easily relate to, in one’s real life. It thus lends itself to many interpretations and connections beyond the film, while the film is running on. Thus for some, a shot of a politician sitting on his chair may mean, ‘power’ and for some others it might mean ‘greed’!

Many-a-times the filmmaker himself gives some ‘significant’ meanings to what he is creating. ‘The audience must understand this meaning that I have given to this action or sequence’, is his desire. Again, there is nothing wrong with this approach. But how does the filmmaker ensure that the audience gets the exact meaning that he had originally thought of for the action or sequence? There is no way in the world that he can ensure this, except perhaps put in a subtitle, ‘This is to be interpreted as this!’ No wonder people complain that they cannot understand an ‘Art Film’. And no wonder some filmmakers complain that the viewers have not understood their film.

If a widow putting her hand into an anthill symbolizes her unfulfilled libido, then there would be a few more questions posed. While coming to the anthill, she had probably rested her hand on a tree, plucked a leaf, and maybe looked at a flower - what do all these mean?

On the other hand, what if there is no inherent meaning intended? Like the village shots in SUDDHA… Is it possible to ‘be’ with these shots without assigning any meanings?

Ironically, I feel that it is in the mainstream cinema that the audience can easily ‘be’ with the film. The dramatic techniques in this kind of cinema are such that the audience is automatically drawn into the screen, loosing their identity. Heavy captivating music, heightened conflict between characters, and a linier fast paced story line – all ensure this. ‘The film has captured the audience’ the saying goes. Neither the filmmaker nor the audience assign any ‘meaning’ to a fight sequence where the hero bashes up four tough guys, except the fact that the hero bashes up the tough guys!

But how about generating the audience’s ‘being’ with the film without any manipulative techniques used by the filmmaker?