Of childhoods burnt to ashes

A powerful film on child workers in Varanasi’s Manikarnika cremation ground aims at opening the world’s eyes to their plight, writes Utpal Borpujari

 

 

They steal shrouds from dead bodies to earn a livelihood, often sleep at night at the cremation ground, and some of them do drugs and marijuana to escape nightmares of grotesque-shaped human limbs burning on the pyre. Very few children anywhere else would be living day in and day out in more macabre a setting as they do. But though they live in Varanasi, the eternal city and favourite tourist destination that has been fodder for many a media and film stories, their story has never been told before.

 

Now, a documentary by a filmmaker uprooted from Kashmir following the outbreak of 1989 insurgency for the first time has brought their story out before the world, leaving viewers shocked at the horrid atmosphere they live in, and winning accolades and awards at international film festivals because of its unflinching and courageous narrative structure.

 

Children of the Pyre, by Rajesh S Jala and winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Montreal World Film Festival, is indeed a visual journey not for the weak-hearted. And though its protagonists are children, no film certification board in the world would probably allow children to watch it, thanks to the gory visuals of bodies burning on the pyres that the director says he has used to emphasise and re-emphasise the thankless setting these children live in.

 

There are about 30 kids who are into the “business” of making a livelihood out of activities in Manikarnika, believed by Hindus to be the most-sacred and ancient cremation ground – and therefore, probably getting the maximum number of bodies to burn every day, so much so that more than one body is said to be burning at any given point of time anytime of the year, year after year.

 

If Ravi, now 15, has been living amidst these burning bodies since he was just five years old, Yogi, Manish, Sunil, Ashish, Kapil are among those who are much younger but already veterans of the trade that primarily comprises stealing of the shrouds covering dead bodies, selling them as cheap as Rs two a piece to local shopkeepers who clean and re-sell them in the market for Rs 25-30. And to ply their trade, they have to be at the place where all the action it – the cremation ground on the banks of the Ganga.

 

Interspersed with frequent close up shots of body parts burning on various pyres – “I have used many of these shots to drive home the point in what kind of brutal surroundings these kids live,” says Jala in response to criticisms from some quarters on this – the kids, tell in the film their life stories in a matter of fact manner, often their innocence seeping through the harshness that the surroundings have bestowed upon them.

 

Belonging to the ‘Dom’ community that traditionally is involved in cremation ground work and are considered “untouchables” by the society, these children have families that live in the Dom quarters of the city, but by choice prefer to live almost like orphans, often even sleeping over at the cremation ground after long hours of work.

 

“It is question of our survival. If we don’t work here, how will we earn our livelihood,” philosophically offers Gagan, the one who is hated by all his “workmates” for his free use of invectives. And that is the story of every kid working there. Not surprisingly, Ravi is quite nonchalant when he says that they have to smoke pot, “even though we know it is a bad habit”, to take their minds away from the sights of burning bodies. But it is not always business – very often, they do a service to humanity too, by burning unclaimed bodies on their own, even though they do it with mock rituals aimed at ‘entertaining’ themselves.

 

Jala, who spent around Rs 40 lakh – raised through his friends and well wishers – to make the film, and hopes to get the investment back by selling it to various TV networks abroad. With the Montreal award and selections to Sao Paulo, Pusan and Leipzig film festivals, and also to the Indian Panorama Section of the forthcoming 39th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), he is hoping to get a deal sooner than latter.

 

The film, which intersperses some poetically-composed images to soften the often­­-hard hitting imagery, virtually never leaves the Manikarnika Ghat, giving only a glimpse of the families of the kids. Jala says he did it deliberately. “We had a lot of footage of the kids with the families, but at the end of the day I realised that if I went out of Manikarnika, the film would lose focus as then I have to show the families of all the seven kids featured,” says the self-taught filmmaker whose earlier film Shadow Valley had studied the violence in Kashmir through the eyes of a nine-year-old boat boy on the Dal lake in Srinagar.

 

The kids, initially suspicious of his intentions, opened up enough to Jala over the 18-month period he shot the film to confide in him that they want to escape of the drudgery of their lives and get educated, some dreaming of becoming a pilot or of owning a big house someday. Unlike many other documentary filmmakers, Jala has kept in regular touch with the kids, as he wants to take the whole thing much beyond his film. “I want to rehabilitate these kids, and am starting a trust for the purpose. At least 3-4 of the kids are highly interested in going to school,” he says.

 

For a filmmaker who always wanted to make a film on some aspect of Varanasi but only accidentally discovered this untouched subject, Jala has made a highly-evocative film that reaches a philosophical high with Kumar Gandharv’s rendering of a Kabir couplet on life and afterlife.

 

“I hope to generate awareness through this film, awareness at a global level to bring back the lost childhood of not only these seven kids but millions of miserable children who never get an opportunity to go to school,” Jala, a strong believer of the dictum that even though films cannot bring revolution, they have the power to change or influence perception.

 

(An abridged version was carried in Sakaal Times, www.sakaaltimes.com, 31-10-2008)

Star athlete-turned-Chambal dacoit’s life to come alive on celluloid

By Utpal Borpujari

For over a decade a blazed the tracks, and then his blazing guns spell terror in the Chambal area.

Now, international athlete-turned-dacoit Pan Singh Tomar’s life story is all set to be recreated on celluloid, with its director saying the film will be an effort to highlight the neglect sportspersons have faced in India over the years.

To be shot extensively in the Chambal ravines, the theatre of action for Tomar till he was shot dead by police, the film, simply titled Pan Singh Tomar, will have Irrfan Khan playing the title role.

“Tomar’s story is symbolic of how we as a nation treat our sportspersons,” director Tiggmanshu Dhulia, who got to know about the Army man-turned-dacoit’s life story while working as casting director for Shekhar Kapoor’s Bandit Queen, told Sakaal Times.

“At least now, because of television, our Olympic medallists are getting known, but there was a time when people like him, despite having represented India in the Asian Games, were completely neglected,” he says. “But the plight of many of our past sports stars is pathetic, and many of them are even begging on the streets for survival.”

The shoot for the UTV Spotboy production will start at Roorkee near Hardwar from November 20. “I am shooting at the Army’s Bengal Engineering Group (BEG) unit there, because that was where Tomar was posted during his heydey as an athlete,” says Dhulia, who has made films like Hasil, Charas and under-production Shagird apart from a number of TV serials.

Tomar was the national steeplechase champion for over a decade starting from the late 1950s after trying his hand at 5,000-metre running. He represented India in the 1958 Tokyo Asiad.

After he retired from the Army and returned to his village in the Chambal area in Madhya Pradesh. There, finding that a distant relative of his had usurped his family land, he went to the police, but was refused any help despite telling them that he was an international athlete and an ex-Army man. Frustrated, he tunred a “Baghi” (rebel) took to the infamous ravines of Chambal.

Irrfan Khan, to prepare for the role, is being trained by professional coaches so that he looks like a genuine athlete with a sinewy body.

 

(An abridged version was carried in Sakaal Times, www.sakaaltimes.com, 29-10-2008)