They've got their favourites: Gujarat riots, middle-class Bengali women, censorship and tent cinemas that tour villages. And they are all using history to make people take notice. Aastha Atray Banan and Aditi Sharma meet the Indian Foundation for the Arts grantees behind 4 unique projects
They've got their favourites: Gujarat riots, middle-class Bengali women, censorship and tent cinemas that tour villages. And they are all using history to make people take notice. Aastha Atray Banan and Aditi Sharma meet the Indian Foundation for the Arts grantees behind 4 unique projects Amit Madheshiya and Shirley Abraham. Pic/NARENDRA DANGIYA
Villagers in Maharashtra wait a whole year to catch a movie
The organisers know how to run a business. They conceive bizarre marketing gimmicks. Once in a while, they get an actress to sit in a cage to dish out tickets to viewers.
Who: Shirley Abraham, researcher, and Amit Madheshiya, photographer
Are: Documenting Maharashtra's touring tent cinemas called Tambu Talkies.
"This is where cinema began, and people seem to have forgotten about them," says researcher Shirley Abraham. While you may think she is referring to the now fading single-screen cinema halls, it's the touring tent cinemas Shirley is talking about, and how they are an integral part of rural entertainment. "They need to be given a special place in history," says the 26 year-old Jamia Millia Islamia graduate, who along with photographer Amit Madheshiya has been travelling all over Maharahtra for the last four months, documenting the Tambu Talkies.
What has the experience of travelling with the touring Tambus been like?
It made us realise what rural life is really all about. Village folk wait for as long as a year to see a movie, when the Tambu Talkies arrive in their village! The talkies travel along with religious yatras, and only make stops where the yatras do. When a Tambu halts in a particular village, people from neigbouring villages also drop in to make the most of the opportunity. It's a huge event.
What kind of movies are screened?
Earlier on, it was mythological movies, mainly. Then came the Dada Kondke comedies. Now, it's the action films, especially the dubbed South Indian variety, that are a hit. And it's really funny how these films draw in the crowds. The organisers know how to run a business. They conceive bizarre marketing gimmicks. Once in a while, they get an actress to sit in a cage to dish out tickets to viewers. They twist the truth to make money. For example, since actor Ajay Devgan is a big hit with the villagers, they tell viewers that the hero of the Southie movie being screened is Arjun Devgan, Ajay's long-lost brother. And the surprising bit is, it all works.
Where do you go from here? Almost in all cases, the guardians of family albums and collections are
Next, we plan to work for a similar project for Majlis, called Cinema Cities. It aims to look at how the cinema of a city is actually is a reflection of that city.
Collecting pictures from family albums takes tact, patience
elderly people, and you have to have improvised strategies and patience to convince them. Hardik Biswas
Who: Hardik Biswas, PhD student
Is: Building a historical archive of photographs of urban middle-class women of Bengal
That's not a line out of a guidebook in diplomacy. Those are Hardik Biswas' words of wisdom acquired after spending more than a year researching his project titled, Photos of Women/Women in Photos: The Photographic Worlds of Urban Bengali Middle-class Women. Biswas, a PhD student at The School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University, thinks himself fortunate to have the support of his professors and the grant from IFA, that's helping him build a digital archive.
What drew you to this project?
The project involves archiving photographs and photographic materials with a focus on representations of Bengali urban middle-class women in family albums and social groups. The visual worlds of Bengal, from the 1880s to the 1970s, caught my attention when I was writing my MPhil dissertation. Photography arrived here as early as 1842 and people took to the new medium almost immediately. Urban households were into making their own visual history through family albums.
How difficult was it convincing your subjects to let you be in their space?
It was challenging. Almost in all cases, the guardians of family albums and collections are elderly people, and you have to have improvised strategies and patience to convince them. It has taken a constant change of tactics, with a cautious and sensitive approach over the last one year. We have been successful but getting through to your subject can never be taken for granted people who try to trespass the nuanced memory of the individual in a rash bid to collect, collect and collect, are never welcome.
What lies ahead for you more projects or exhibitions? It involved a huge amount of organisational work and co-ordination. For an artist like me, whose work is primarily studio-based, this was not an easy task. Vasudha Thozhur
At the end of two years, I'm planning an anthology on photography with a focus on the region. As a second phase to the ongoing project, I've planned a well-curated exhibition of selected prints from the archival collection. We hope to travel with this exhibition to major cities in India.
We didn't want people to forget history
Who: Vasudha Thozhur, painter
Is: Working with young women and girls all Gujarat riot victims to introduce them to painting and filmmaking
Spending time with six adolescent girls who lost their families in the Gujarat riots of 2002, couldn't have been easy. But Baroda-based painter Vasudha Thozhur had a plan to help these young women she wanted to use art as a healer of collective trauma. She wanted them to feel again, and respond to the riots through the medium of painting, photography and filmmaking.
What drew you to this project?
It involved working with six girls who lost several members of their families, in the carnage at Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad, on February 28, 2002. It aims to address a range of issues, from personal loss to displacement. In terms of methodology, the focus is on process rather than pre-determined outcome, and the recording of the process through writing, painting and digital media, so that we can build an archive that doesn't make it easy for us to forget what happened. The output is in the form of paintings, prints, posters, written documentation and video footage, all a product of the girls' hard work.
What roadblocks did you face?
There were uncertainties due to the political situation in Gujarat at the time, and so, it was a challenge to sustain the effort and predict the outcome. It involved a huge amount of organisational work and co-ordination. For an artist like me, whose work is primarily studio-based, this was not an easy task.
What have you taken away from the project? Sunil Shanbag. pic/rane ashish
Patience, among other things. I've learn that it is dangerous to romanticise tragedy, or individuals. Rather, you should think of people and communities as strands in the social fabric, and seek to strengthen that. That's how you can learn to work without expectation.
Today, we are more conservative than we were in the 70s
The kind of things people were doing then (in the 70s) were more radical than what we are doing or are allowed to do today. Our society has moved backwards as far tolerance and openness to new ideas goes.
Who: Sunil Shanbag, theatre director and filmmaker
Is: Researching censorship in theatre with specific reference to Sakharam Binder
Sunil Shanbag is busy observing contemporary society as he sets out to explore the phenomenon of censorship in theatre with reference to Vijay Tendulkar's 1972 play, Sakharam Binder, banned in 1974 for obscenity (One of the characters, Champa, changes her saree on stage).u00a0 He has three productions lined up for 2009, beginning with Who says no?, a theatre work on censorship funded by IFA. Shanbag, along with Shanta Gokhale and Iravati Karnik, hopes to give this theoretical subject a theatrical twist.
What's the idea behind the project?
Over the last few years, I've been increasingly troubled by this idea called censorship. I wanted to explore the genesis of this violence. Then in November, I held an inaugural show for Prithvi Festival where they asked me to do something on (Satyadev) Dubey. I tried to use a form that was a mixture of testimonies, video, archival material and enactment. For the new project (on censorship), I want to rework that form and see if I can make it more sophisticated. I'm hoping that it'll have humour and will be very, very political.
Contemporary audiences might not find anything objectionable in Sakharam Binder. How do you deal with that?
You can't look at history with today's sensibility. I think today, we are far more reactionary and conservative than we were in the 70s. The kind of things people were doing then were more radical than what we are doing or are allowed to do today. Our society has moved backwards as far tolerance and openness to new ideas goes.
You've been associated with IFA in the past too when you were given a grant for your play Cotton 56, Polyester 84. How has getting the grant helped your projects?
They were taken in by the fact that we were going to put working class history onu00a0 stage. The play travelled across the country, with more than 80 performances in really far-out places. And so, within IFA too, the play was seen as a bit of a success. Again, the latest project is different from what is currently going on in theatre, so, it fits in well with their idea of new performances.
Why was Sakharam Binder banned?
Sakharam Binder created a controversy due to its radical plot, where the protagonist gives shelter to destitute women but treats them as servants and sex partners, who are free to leave anytime they want.
Cotton 56, Polyester 84
It explores a millworker's life in a time when textile mills were the mainstay of Mumbai's economy. But over the years, mill land was sold leaving workers without jobs and no way to fend for themselves
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