Kanpur Medley

Krishna gram is a small village 20 Km from Kanpur. Aside from being one of the biggest dairy-hub around Kanpur area, it is also known for its paddy crops. This village is also well irrigated unlike many other villages in various parts of India, or so the myth goes. This village has found a significant place into the consciousness of the people in Kanpur, especially students and alumni of IIT Kanpur. That is the presence of Jeevan Sanskar Kendra, established by Shri Ganesh Bagadiya Ji or simply Ganesh Ji. A pass-out of IIT Kanpur’s 1976 electrical engineering batch, Ganesh Ji did not go on to join the herd of engineers with an IIT degree working for big corporations. He chose to stay back and work with villagers, teaching them. But the education he imparted was much different from the traditional sense of the word. As years went by, he came to meet various like-minded people from all walks of life in various cities of Hyderabad, Delhi, and Raipur etc. All of these people together had a mentor in the form of Nagraj Babaji, who is presently residing in blessed town of Amarkantak in the heart of Madhya Pradesh.

As this clique grew, it began to assess the root cause of many problems currently faced by humanity. Their goal was not to simply uplift the people of India but of the world. But since it had to start somewhere, it started with educational institutes such as IIT Kanpur, Delhi etc. For the past 15 years they are in the process of teaching the so-called teachers of various institutes to instil the right kind of education into the minds of the young generation. And the network of students and teachers keeps growing through word of mouth. I came principally in contact with this network in Feb 2006 and since then my life has changed significantly if not completely.

Santosh Kumar

Santosh kumar is a small farmer in Barkhula village in Bihar. 5 years ago he was working as a sales agent for a detergent company; he also had a small travel and tourism business. But all was not going well. He had a rough relationship with his in-laws due to not being able to afford the status which his wife was used to in all her premarital life. Needless to point out that his marriage was not going well either. This went on for a couple of years until they had a child, a beautiful girl named Fuli. He started worrying about the future of the girl and the fact that she would one day grow to see all the blisters which his relationship with in-laws had and he did not want that. That’s when he chanced upon an old college friend in the nearby village’s harvest fair. Apparently, that old friend was learning and teaching YOGA in the JEEVAN CHETNA SANSTHAN at Kanpur. With an invitation Santosh went to visit the place only to realise that this was going to be his family for the rest of his life. Santosh began to do YOGA, he quit smoking and drinking. After 2 years of association with the institute, he met one day with Ganesh ji, a meeting which was to change his life forever. He plunged himself into the ocean of knowledge which Ganesh ji was imparting to others through his set up in Krishnagram. Santosh now became clear what he wanted in his life. He began farming paddy after buying a small land in Barkhula. He chose this place since he wanted to remain close to Ganesh Ji. He convinced his wife to meet Ganesh ji as well. Their family relocated to this village in 2004. He has been farming for two years and makes enough to send his daughter to obtain the primary education and pursue her real interest of learning Music. She is a gifted singer at a tender age of 12.

Shefali

Shefali is a social worker for as long as she knows. She works in the remote villages of Assam for a small NGO based in Assam. She lives in an accommodation shared by 8 other girls of the nearby villages working in Assam to make a living for them and support family back home. Shefali has 3 sisters, two brothers and a mother. Her brothers have left Assam ages ago and work in cities like Pune and Hyderabad. Shefali is the youngest sister, the rest of them are married and have their own families to tend to. Shefali has to take care of her mother in her old age and she has to make a living for herself too. She has ambitions to start her own NGO to deal with human trafficking issue which is rampant in this part of the country. She herself deals with a lot of issues at the grass-roots working with her present NGO. Unfortunately she has not been able to save a lot of money to start her own venture. So she started building a network with her NGO fraternity in the rest of the nation. She had to frequently travel to states like Bihar and UP for her associations with NGOs there. She met Ganesh ji while he was conducting a 3 day workshop with the local villagers. She instantly knew she wanted to know more and despite a language barrier, decided to stay back and listen on. She was only able to understand 40% of what was actually taught there, but it was enough to encourage her to pursue this further and she went to attend a full length workshop at Kanpur. After completing the 7 days there, she realises the importance of her life and her time. She now wants to go back to her village and start independent work helping out the villagers to deal with their local issues with land rights, police and establishment. It’s a gigantic leap in her faith towards her cause.

The way I see it

Behind the facade of Gurgaon’s glitterati of IT parks, Malls, SEZs lies a sub-city of harsh realities and relentless struggle for the majority of migrant workers and contract labours. An often ignored fact is the appalling state of public transport in and around the Gurgaon region and an undercover response to mitigate the situation by call centre cab services. That there is a dire need to improve the public transport situation and that too urgently has been a known imperative for the past several years now. The Delhi government’s metro project between Delhi and Gurgaon will certainly assuage some of the inconveniences the “common man” is grappling with daily. However a general feeling of far-too-less and far-in-between has sown it seeds amongst the collective consciousness of the masses. Considering the number of vehicles on the road and an oceanic change in the lifestyles of Delhi middle class over past few year are the key factors why people believe it will be really hard for Mr. Blue collar to come out of their comfort zones and be on the queues for metros.

The other day when I was travelling in one of those infamous call-centre cabs masquerading as public transport, I got an opportunity to speak to a couple of co-passengers. The talk started generally but gathered pace very briskly. We started talking about the local governments, people, the rich-poor divide, elections, religion, sport, you name it. And I asked myself, is this powerless, uneducated urban flab which is derided by media, sabotaged by politicians, sub-humanised by the elite? What keeps them motivated? What gets them going every day? “Just keep going. Don’t lose faith in you. If you truly want it, it could be delayed but not denied” said one of them while I was getting impatient at the bus stop. That’s when I realise, the higher you climb up in the society, the weaker you get, insecurity shrouds your life from everywhere and you begin asking the questions for which you or nobody you know has answers. What you do when you see that you have reached the end of the road and this was not suppose to be your destination?

You step out of your mould and you meet people.

You meet all sorts of people; you find comfort in their small stories. You find how redeeming your life can be when you crack that mysterious code. When a small time farmer tells you the story of his 5 children and how they lost all hope of survival and stretched their life to the extreme for that proverbial “Do vaqt ki roti” and still come out alive and kicking, you know you have been just touched by life. Why that is the economy of resources so overpowers and wins-over almost every other negative energy in people’s lives. The same thought keeps coming back to me in so many different morphs that I have made it a mantra of my own life. Be minimalistic. Work with minimum.

The other day I was travelling to the mountains to recharge my batteries. I had pledged that I will remember every person that I speak to so that when I am back I will develop a character sketch of every single one of them. I met a few people. Some very remarkable people. Truly in control of their lives. Not shy of admitting their follies. Not carried away by the sight of money. Highly grateful. Not afraid of taking measured risks. Friendly with animals. Nature lovers. Not a single one of them had college education, yet they were really educated. You bet. They could look into your eyes and see through your soul and take out that emotion tucked away in some lost corner. You suddenly feel unburdened. The people I am talking about have to go through hardships you and I can barely imagine us into. How do they find such energies? This is what I sensed in their spirits. The spirit of human survival.

Confessions of a poetic mind

Small is beautiful and as potent as big if not less. Do you know what sustains life in the giant sunderbans in the ganges delta? It is the crabs. They clean up the river in a gigantic sweep on a daily basis without which the mangrove forests would have drowned in its own sludge ages ago. Or rather they would never have even gone on to become a forest. To what effect would that have affected the course of our civilization is left to reader's imagination. So what I am really getting at here?

Ernest Hemingway confessed that one of the most difficult works of his life is actually a story which he wrote in only 6 words. It goes like this: "For sale: Baby shoes; Never worn." And I can imagine the kind of satisfaction not merely literary but emotionally he must have felt after this mammoth accomplishment. During the most difficult times of despair I have always held to writing poetry, because I know only poetry has the power to reach out the deep, deep recesses of my heart and bring out something which I always wanted to but somehow coundn't.

Great poets have survived wars, famines, partitions, loss being a mere witness to history so that one day they will recount every single thread of their emotions through their poems. So you see poems are in a way the most trustworthy and honest companion of ones life.

To be contd....

Journey

Past few months have defied all my long held theories about cinema and film making. No more do I watch films for pleasure, nor criticism, nor theorizing. I am not able to! I watch them for what they could be if I was behind the camera or what they have which I as a film maker could never have thought of.

Although this journey has begun rather late but I am thankful it began at an age where I was capable of doing an honest introspection and self correction of myself. If this had started earlier I never could have got a chance to live the life of a foolhardy, just too self aware and self important human being. Thankfully I lived that life a few years ago and therefore retrospectively I have now realized my mistake and am sure of not repeating it ever.

If on the other hand this journey was too late I would have lost precious time. Film making as a form of art per se cannot be understood without giving due diligence to the associated art forms. You cannot be a satisfied film maker if you are not visually observant of your life, if you don’t listen well to what goes around you, even if is a flutter of a butterfly or dropping of a dust peck, if you don’t have thoughts, ideas, meanings with a principal basis to support. As a sincere filmmaker you will attach meaning to every little thing that seemed unimportant to you so far and still does to many people. You look at life with a much different perspective where you feel as if you are travelling all the time.

Being a film maker is easy, but a being a true human being with ethical or moral values associated with your endeavor and an unquenchable thirst to fulfill your artistic pursuits is what takes efforts and time. It doesn’t happen overnight. It can happen sooner with some than others but will nonetheless take years. Artists are made not born. This sense of art has to be developed with sincerity for which you are only accountable to yourself. Age polishes art, but if left unattended it will rust away into doom. It’s a perennial effort to bring into fruition the proverbial “artist’s eye”.

I have just burnt my fingers into the surface of what seems like a giant volcano inside. It looks like a long journey, may be a journey to life, a journey to get all you live for. It’s not a trivial journey; it’s a step which will transcend all your beliefs, judgments, pains, sorrows, redemptions you have had in your life so far. It’s a journey to be the kind of human being you want to be. No trivial effort this is.

Daryaganj Book Market

Before I start my reportage about the visit to Daryaganj book market, I must confess that it is a place I had craved to visit for many years, and my love for this place goes a long way back to the doordarshan days when the address "Nayi Kotwali, Daryaganj, New Delhi - 110002" used to be displayed after the news programme on TV for any leading information about the lost (and found) people. This love started merely as a curiosity about the name "Daryaganj". During college days when I picked up a lot of hindi literature, I found this word mentioned in several paper backs at the back cover as a part of the publisher's note and my growing curiousity took the shape of a strange kind of affection for this place. I got the opportunity to visit the place on the last sunday, hence my account of the place could be deemed laced with self-indulgences and pre-concieved notions of mine.

You must imagine a day with a perfect morning, neither too hot, nor too cold. There must have been moderate rainfall on the previous night, which is what makes the air little damp, pavements little slippery and roads muddy. Dampness which could have led to intolerable humidity, had it not been for the mild and cloud capped sun. All in all, a perfect day to visit Daryaganj book market.

On the way to the book market, most of the shops are shut and streets are mostly clean, garbage cans have been cleared and there is plenty of space for everyone on the streets. As you cross the shopping area, you notice a small community park where few old men are chatting, some are reading, few women are chatting amongst each other holding their chunri with one hand close to their face to cover it from playful sunlight.

Entering the book market from the opposite side of the street has a particular advantage that you can notice the business going on from a distance in a larger perspective. Most noticeable are of-course the books lying or rather arranged on the pavements, but then there is more than that. There are T-shirts, caps, locks, ties, shoes and several other small leather made knickknacks on sale as well. Hence the term “book market” already sounds a misnomer. Anyway, you move on crossing the road and jump right in the heart of the market and suddenly loose your sense of space akin to a fish market, a place for which chaos will be an understatement. People are pushing you and brushing past as you are trying to make sense of the situation. Shopkeepers are asking you to either move on or leave the pavement as this is “business hours”. When you side-step you realize you are blocking the entry to staircases, those narrow and winding steps, probably leading to shop keeper’s apartment.

On this side of the road everything looks so vibrant as if you have entered a different world, the traffic is whizzing past at crazy speeds, shop keepers are lively, even the beggars are lively. A shopkeeper is telling his customer, “bhai khareedo ya na khareedo, kitab aise mat feko” (Whether or not you buy the book, handle them with care). Here people make no bones about their business; they usually do not have eager smiling faces which you usually associate with the shopkeepers in malls. Here the trade is much more rough and pushy but the offers are ludicrously cheap and the choice is endless, hence nobody really cares about pleasantries. Some one pats on my shoulders and asks me to keep my cell phone inside lest someone might snatch it away. So simple yet so meaningful were his gesture that you don’t realize that he is actually mute. A shopkeeper is laying the books on the pavements, yet another is mopping the pavement. A sewer has opened up near by owing to the filth around, but sellers don’t mind cleaning the road themselves. A little ahead a circle of crowd has been formed, as you move closely you see a Muslim (because of her black robes) woman drinking water from a tap and people are waiting for their turn. All in all, a commotion of sorts.

A little ahead half the road is dug up due to some reconstruction work and the moving traffic winds down slowly through. Next to a small dig out within the construction site, two people are sitting facing each other on chairs which they have somehow managed to put there. They are chatting easily over a cup of tea while puffing out bidis with no attention whatsoever to the mounting jams nearby. Traffic jams does not last much as a bus drives away after some passengers have alighted at the stop. They are all college kids, with their sporty caps, Nike shoes and bag packs, talking noisily with each other, strolling past casually as if it’s a walk in the park.

A cycle rickshaw is steering its way in the maddening traffic; there is something very unusual about it. It is not noticeable immediately but as the rickshaw comes close you realize that its driver barely has one arm. He is pulling it away with full-blooded rigor never compromising the balance and speed. It is loaded with sacks of books and it suddenly comes to a grinding halt almost with an unusual crash into the pavement, few shop keeper leap towards it and start unloading with a sense of alacrity. Rickshaw driver is helping them unload the books while few guys start to unpack them with usual finesse. The job is over in a few minutes and someone hands over the cash to rickshaw driver, a paltry sum of 20 rupees for a perfectly relaxing Sunday morning he just had.

If you are already soaked in sweat, you can sit on a stool in a nearby cobbler’s shop, while watching him at work. His hands are absolutely and completely blackened with boot polish as if his body is a devotee of his work. His face is prematurely old; hair is unusually black and disheveled; His body language is lethargic as if he had been starved for centuries and you feel somehow his whole life has been subsumed by darkness. Meanwhile somewhere else in the market the entire young crowd, of which a mention has already been made earlier, gravitates to a particular shop in the market which has occupied a major real estate in pavement and still some books are being laid out. They have managed to put up huge shelves where the books are arranged methodically by an expert. People are languidly browsing the books as the collection is really impressive. Exactly next to this shop is music store of leading repute, but it is no surprise that it is virtually empty because a few paces ahead another music store has been set up on the pavement selling pirated stuff for dirt cheap prices.

A few minutes ahead there is a government approved wine shop which can give any book shop a run for its money. This shop stands in perfect contrast to the book market, even incongruent. Shopkeepers don’t shout here, people don’t spend much time here either, they know what they want, they order it, shove it in pockets and leave, not even bothering to keep the change back in their wallets while fully aware that pickpockets are everywhere. Imagine their sense of urgency on a Sunday afternoon.

It is mid-day and the heat is beginning to take its toll on you. You wander in streets and watch the happenings around you with very little recollection. In this state of mind you can see names but fail to appreciate the humor behind. Book market’s explosive character could also be attributed to the unusual titles it boasts like “Do pairon wala bomb” (A two-legged bomb), or how about “Dilli ke darindey” (Beasts of Delhi)? This market is probably yet to reach the peak of its business as some sacks of books are still lying on the pavements, even on the rickshaws, but you realize that you are too fatigued to continue any further exploration.

Road to novelty

The very reason you jump into film making is because you don’t want to stick to clichés rather you want to change the rules of the game and break away from conventionality, creating new ways of portraying a mood which strikes a chord with the audience not because they have seen similar thing before rather they have never seen such a thing before. Does the road to learning novelty in cinema traverse through clichés?

There are many possible answers but the one which I can think of right now is here:

When you create a scene and put up your camera, your abilities in the past will drive you towards achieving the best possible angle. You won’t be able to achieve the right angle, the right distance and right height the very first time. It needs practice and experience. What you see in movies by great artists takes years of experience and learning, something which can only be achieved when you START SHOOTING and LEARN ON SET.
In order to learn as much as you can from every exercise, just ensure that before you are actually shooting, you have explored all the possible angles and know the effect each angle may create in the minds of the audience. Then only you will be able to TELL YOUR STORY. Additionally, this is important because you are telling a story with visuals and you want visuals to convey a certain thought or mood or drama. If you can’t tell the exact outcome of a particular shot, how can you evoke the desired emotion in the minds of the audience? Merely by dialogues?

Katra Katra

I like the song "Katra Katra" (Ijaazat) written by Gulzar. It is probably the most cheerful celebration of the conflicts and pains of the forgiving heart of a woman, who loves her husband living a perplexing life. Rekha looks amazing too, portraying the complexity of the character very simply yet convincingly, which is often very difficult.
You know that you pity her for absence of love in her life yet you enjoy her solitude as much as she herself detests it. It puts you in conflict yourself.