Jaishree Kapur
Jaishree Kapur is currently working as an
Assistant Professor (Ad-hoc) in the Department of English, Lakshmibai College,
University of Delhi. She is working on cinematic adaptations of literary
narratives that deal with the issue of caste in different regions of India as
part of her PhD research program.
Abstract
Within
the realm of Bombay cinema or Bollywood — an industry (in)famous for providing
an escape route from the social reality, there is a marked rejection of the
voices from the margins owing to the commercial nature of the industry. Since
cinema as a medium is hugely dependent on economic viability and collaborative
ventures, Dalits who have been historically subjugated on social, economic,
political, and cultural fronts have remained alienated from the film industry,
barring a few exceptions. The films that dealt with the issue of caste have
been mostly made with a sympathetic eye of the upper caste filmmakers who have
projected the ‘others’ from a distanced position in order to bring to the
surface, the social evils of the society. The recent developments in regional
cinema have witnessed an emergence of filmmakers who do not condescend on
telling tales on behalf of the marginalised and the oppressed but endeavour to represent
in the visual realm, a world from within. This act of reclaiming one’s own
agency by documenting a world full of dreams, desires, aspirations and the
everyday lived reality of the excluded are moments that register sites of
resistance. In this light, the present paper attempts to understand how Nagraj
Popatrao Manjule in his first full length Marathi film, Fandry (2014)
has represented the complex working mechanism of caste on screen by depicting
the cinematic journey of an untouchable teenager boy who faces rejection on
continual basis and becomes, “unseeable, unapproachable and un-hearable”
(Kumar 1). The
paper will further scrutinize how the filmmaker creates both moments of
resistance that reject this reduction within the cinematic journey of his
protagonist, and simultaneously recreates his own lived reality on screen which
becomes an active act of resisting the hegemony of traditional chaturvarna
caste hierarchies.
Keywords: Rejection,
Marginal, Denial, Assertion, Location, Resistance
I
If I did not have a pen in my hand
Then
It would have been a chisel
A sitar
A flute
Or perhaps a canvas and brush
*
I would have been digging
With whatever I had
This extravagant cacophony of mind
—Nagraj Manjule[1]
Nagraj Popatrao Manjule belongs to the Vadar
caste in Maharashtra who were traditionally relegated the work of cutting
stones for their survival. Inspired by the teachings of Jyotiba Phule and
Babasaheb Ambedkar, he became the first person to receive education in his
family and completed his Masters in Marathi literature with the objective of
becoming a professor in a university. The above quoted lines clearly throw light
on how literary, physical, instrumental or artistic tools are simply different
mediums to assert one’s voice that has been rejected by the so-called canon;
the medium for proliferating one’s ideas might change yet the objective remains
the same. The urgency with
which Manjule documents his voice in these lines also forms the guiding principle
behind the cinematic medium chosen to depict his own life story on the
celluloid. Interestingly, Fandry was released
on the Valentine’s day of 2014; a film about the innocent love of a teenage boy
Jabya or Jambuwant Kachru Mane (played by Somnath Avghade), that reaches a
realisation towards the end; realisation not in the traditional sense where the
boy meets the girl leading to a fairy-tale ending that Bollywood has fed its audience since ages,
but in sharp contrast, the journey of the protagonist makes him realise the
impossibility of loving freely in a world bridled by the caste hierarchies,
frustrating the expectations of the audience.
Situated in the village of Akolnagar, near
Ahmednagar, the child protagonist of Manjule’s film, Jabya or Jabuwant Kachru
Mane belongs to Kaikadi[2] community,
a lower caste community that is presented as surviving on digging, construction
work, and basket weaving in the film. Through the character of superstitious
and eccentric Chankya (Nagraj Popatrao Manjule), the child has been convinced
that only the ashes of a black bird can magically make the girl of his dreams—the
upper caste, fair skinned Shalu or Shalini (Rajashree Kharat), fall in love
with him. The film begins in a serene stretch of wood where the spectators are slowly led into the world of Jabya holding a
slingshot with unblinking eyes transfixed onto the long tailed black sparrow.
The tracking shots that bring us near Jabya are immediately succeeded by point
of view shots, clearly establishing in the beginning of the film itself that
the spectators shall see the world from the eyes of this teenager. The film
clearly traces an insider’s world created in order to familiarize the audience
with the perspective of another insider i.e., the filmmaker. After Jabya’s
failed attempt to catch the elusive bird, there is a transition from this
dreamlike landscape full of expectations and soft music on sarod to an arid,
barren land where Jabya confronts the harsh realities of his life. While on the
one hand, this fantasy like space is full of chirping birds, rustling leaves
and stark bright light falling on the trees, the world where he resides i.e.,
his hut is an unusually dark, dim lit space lacking electricity and something
as essential as a gas stove. The walls of hut are covered by tin sheets and a
family of seven manage with barely two cots. The makeshift hay covered roof too
rests on the trunks of trees. It is a place rejected by the entire
village—situated on the periphery of the village, it is akin to the peripheral
existence of its inhabitants. This narrative technique of juxtaposing two
contradictory worlds, one full of anticipations, dreams and desires that
transcend one’s caste position, and other where one is constantly reminded
about the impossibility of achieving the former world becomes a predominant
motif that runs throughout the film.
Animals
and birds occupy a pivotal role in the cinematic narrative. In conjunction with
Dalit folkloric allusions to birds and animals, the filmmaker unfolds the
concept of purity/pollution through intriguing symbolism. In an interview with
Anupama Chopra, Manjule explains, “We impose caste system on animals; a crow is
an untouchable but a sparrow is a brahman …”[3]
(Chopra) making apparent that it is not just the humans who remain burdened by
caste oppression but animals too have been relegated different ranks by humans.
In accordance with the superior caste position, the little black long tailed
bird always holds an elevated status in the realm of the sky remaining beyond
the reach of a simpleton like Jabya. The elusiveness of the bird is directly
compared to the ambiguity with which Shalu is portrayed as she always remains
distant to Jabya even when she is right in front of him. When an elderly woman
scoffs him that the bird is a Brahmin, and she will be killed by her community
members, if she is touched by him, there is a direct link established between
the bird and Shalu. Contrary to the upper caste location of Shalu and the black
bird, Jabya is likened to something as detestable and repulsive as a pig. In
the essay, “Rejection of Rejection”, Prof. Gopal Guru underlines, “. . . desire
for recognition or elevation logically assumes corresponding reduction,
rejection, cancellation, and annihilation of certain human beings” (Guru 210). The
elevated status of one is necessarily hinged upon the reduced position of the
other in the dialectics that govern caste politics. The word “fandry” which means pig in the local
dialect of Kaikadi community becomes a symbol to unfold the mechanics of
reduction as Jabya, and his entire family is reduced to the level of pigs,
since their survival is contingent upon rearing, killing and eating the animal.
Aarti
Wani in her essay, “Love in the time of
Pigs” opines, “The pigs too are untouchable; girls scamper for a purifying
bath if one touches them even accidently” (Wani 73). Furthermore, both pigs and
the only Kaikadi community in the village coexist on the waste-land where
people go to relieve themselves. Since Jabya’s traditional family occupation
involves survival on pigs, his detestation of pigs (especially evident in his
refusal to pick up a piglet from the sewage) concords with his detestation of
his own untouchable caste. Pigs therefore, become synonymous to his loathsome
caste position. They become a literal and metaphorical hindrance when he tries
to directly approach Shalu. The film also throws light on hens and goats in
several frames simply to lend an authentic rustic flavour to the narrative. It
is this animal-bird symbolism that enables the filmmaker to unfold the caste
binaries on screen as the dreamlike landscape brimming with soft chirping sound
of the birds is constantly juxtaposed with the sordid reality of a barren
landscape where black, grunting, filth-smeared pigs reside.
One
of the major ways to reinforce the caste binaries is through food and
inter-dining rituals. Jabya’s family is considered loathsome as they consume
pigs who dwell in garbage and therefore, the family too is considered no less
than filth by upper caste groups. The film concretizes the idea that people
belonging to the same caste group share food with each other. Interestingly, when
Jabya visits his friend Pirya (Suraj Pawar), he is immediately offered a cup of
tea. However, the exchange between Jabya and his upper caste classmate is
starkly different. Vedant has a cow in front of his house along with tulsi
plant and picture frames of upper caste Hindu gods—all symbols for invoking
purity and sacredness, amidst the danger of pollution. Instead of inviting Jabya for a glass of water
in his house, Vedant tells him the syllabus that he missed on the previous day
in school from the gate itself. In fact, a carefully constructed spatial boundary
becomes acutely visible on screen as a man wearing janeyu (sacred
thread) and tilak (vermillion mark) enters the house while Jabya stands
outside the gate. Moreover, he is referred to as Kaikadi’s son instead of his
first name by Vedant’s mother, clearly underling how subtle caste markers
employed by savarna groups allow them to draw caste boundaries and
perpetuate hierarchies. Through these instances, Manjule clearly highlights an
inherent sense of repulsion associated with a Dalit’s body.
Jabya, Shalu, Pirya and Vedant all study
in the same grade yet the starting line is different for each in accordance
with their socio-economic conditions. Since, Manjule belongs to the first
generation of people who received education in his family; he considers it as
the only means which can bring a positive change within the Dalit community.
This desire to bring the light of education amongst Dalits became an impetus
for his first documentary film, Pistulya[4] (2009)
which highlighted the struggle of a young boy to go to the school against all
odds. Fandry seems to be a
continuation of Pitsulya, an attempt to answer what happens when a Dalit boy
manages to reach school along with the other children of the village. Jabya who
is enrolled in seventh grade, works as a labourer during the day at
construction sites, occasionally sell baskets in the marketplace, and studies
under the lamp all night without any external guidance. On the day when he gets
a chance to go the school, he irons his shirt with hot coal chunks placed in a
vessel, spends considerable amount of time combing his hair, and dabs his face
with finely grinded particles of cement (perhaps picked up from the
construction site he works at) to have a lighter skin tone. The classroom too
is not a free space of learning where innocent children coexist in harmony but is
steeped in deep biases. Jabya’s only friend, Pirya is hit by his partner
whenever their hands accidently touch each other indicating the deep-seated
notions of purity and pollution ingrained in the minds of not just the adults
but at the nascent stage of childhood itself. Pirya’s act of going back and
sitting with Jabya is not an act of finding refuge with his friend but an unsayable
affinity with another untouchable—in this moment of affinity, they are not merely
classmates but the two secluded isolated rejected untouchables, located, both
literally and metaphorically on the periphery of the classroom.
Classroom is also a space where the verses
by Chokhamela[5]
are read aloud in order to instil the notion that rather than someone’s caste,
rank or status, one must look at the character of a person. Ironically, the
upper caste students who are taught this poem practise exactly the opposite in
their daily lives as Jabya is mocked by his classmates, precisely at the time
when Chokhamela’s verses are recited by the teacher. In the preceding sequence,
an upper caste student takes out his mobile phone to openly challenge the
authority of the teacher when he is scolded for not completing his homework.
Such audaciousness too is a consequence of the power and the position of his
father which has been passed on to him by the ‘virtue’ of being born in a
certain varna. The location of his
desk at the “centre” of the classroom allows him to act as a barrier[6]
(both literally and symbolically), between the untouchable Jabya and the upper
caste Shalu, and serves to underline the impossibility of the union between the
two, undermining the idea of inter caste alliance as an effective measure to
dispel the rigid caste boundaries and hierarchies. A clear disjunction between
theory and praxis appears on the walls that surround the playground of the
school as the graffiti images of Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule, Babasaheb Ambedkar,
Rajarshi Shahu, Sant Gadge Maharaj and Chatrapati Shivaji never enter into the
psyche of students and these iconic images clearly fail to guide them towards an
inclusive society. In an ironic undertone, Manjule highlights how the space
that is supposed to engender knowledge hailing from the tradition of
educationalists, social reformers and revolutionaries has now become an
institution that breeds the caste hierarchies.
Within
the narrative discourse of the film, Manjule brings to the surface the idea
that rejection functions on the logic of denial and exclusion. The only Kaikaki
community in the village has been traditionally denied education, as a
consequence of which they have become subservient pawns in the hands of the upper
caste village heads. Jabya’s father called Kachru Nana (Kishor Kadam) almost
forces his children to become passive receptors of caste oppression in the
social fabric of the village. His entry into the film is marked by rebuking
Jabya for leaving his construction work unfinished and for obsessing over his
homework. It is a dysfunctional society where all the family members including
Jabya’s old grandfather and widowed sister who has a two-year-old son has
accepted their reduced social and economic position merely in order to survive
in the village. Indoctrinating a sense of worthless in the mind of Kachru by
upper caste men and his mindless reiteration of the same when he is in the grip
of alcohol; not granting him advance money in the wake of his daughters’
marriage; constant use of slur words in order to humiliate him are in the words
of Prof. Gopal Guru, “. . . coercive way(s) to reduce a person to servility”
(Guru 216). He is excluded from the discussion during the gram panchayat
meeting, from the so-called politics of the village undertaken by savarna
men but has been relegated the role of service and compliance in accordance
with his caste position. When he finds out the love letter written by Jabya for
Shalu, spectators expect him to thrash the child but on the contrary, he
remains passive due to illiteracy. Lack of education has also created
superstitious individuals like Chankya whose entry into the film is marked by mindlessly
lighting incense sticks in front of gods and goddesses. He adorns his fingers with
astrological gemstones, immerses himself half in mud, tells Jabya to kill the
black bird and drowns himself in alcohol to escape his grim reality. While
Jabya manages to enter the classroom premises, his sister, the fifteen-year-old
Surekha has been denied education and is all set to be a bride against a dowry
of twenty thousand rupees. Along with Surekha, her mother and sister contribute
both in the public and private spheres yet they become prey to the verbal
rebukes of upper-caste men due to their location at the intersection of caste,
class and gender. In addition to the central plot, the film throws light on the
lives of all these characters who are otherwise rejected by the dominant social
groups in the village.
In one of the most iconic sequence of the
film, the procession ritual of a local deity is traced where different people
perform roles in accordance to their caste and class position. In order to gain
recognition in the eyes of Shalu, Jabya insists on playing halgi[7]; he
wears a crisp new shirt, dances enthusiastically on rhythm of the music despite
of being constantly brushed aside by upper caste men, and most visibly when he
sits on the shoulders of Chankya. Immediately after a brief moment of ecstasy,
he is made to come down both literally and metaphorically from the shoulders of
Chakya to perform his role of holding the burden of his caste. It is not merely
the lamp which burns over his head in this scene but the fire signifies the
spirit of the child which burns as his desire for acceptance and recognition
crumbles down right in front of the spectators. The scene is shot meticulously
with a camera movement from overhead to low angle shot, capturing his face
smeared with tears of rejection making it especially heart wrenching as it
appears after the voiceover of his love letter. A suffocating ambience dispels
on to the screen as the upper caste men vigorously dance right in front of his
eyes as if to mock and ridicule his caste status. Manjule makes the audience
loathe the very spirit of festivity itself that is hinged on the humiliation of
a child’s spirit.
II
Rejection
as a consequence of one’s caste position gains a nuanced meaning within the
cinematic narrative as it becomes visible in something as intangible as the
desires of the two children who are located on the extreme end of the caste
hierarchy. While Shalu enjoys wearing a pair of goggles, eating a candy, playing
a game with her friends, trying out a pair of earrings in a fare and admiring
hands designed with henna, Jabya desires something as essential as a notebook,
a pair of trousers, and a moment where his eyes can meet with Shalu. The
narrative depicts how she seamlessly fulfils her desires one after the other,
whereas he perpetually lives in a state of denial. Clearly in this visceral
world, desire too is contingent on one’s caste, Manjule seems to underline. In
tandem with one’s desires, the first dream of Jabya highlights his inability to
come out of the dark waters surrounded by the high walls of the well,
symbolising his suffocation and impending drowning due to his caste position. In sharp contrast to this dream, there is
another dream where he throws the ashes of the black sparrow on Shalu who holds
his hand and rests her head on his chest to the shock and wonderment of the
rest of the characters. Manjule, time and again creates a dream landscape from
the perspective of a teenager boy but constantly shocks the audience by
highlighting the unattainability of that dream. Since it is a world created
from the lens of Jabya which in turn becomes the lens of audience, the denial
to desire and dream freely brings the spectators into the realisation that
Babasaheb Ambedkar’s call of ‘annihilation of caste’[8] remains
a farfetched dream till date. Jabya’s both literally and symbolically lights a lantern
to read his missed lessons despite of his father’s rebukes; his refusal to go
with his family members in order to purchase the much desired pants because of
his upcoming exams; his counter denial to pick up a piglet from the sewage at
the command of the upper caste couple; his ability to take charge of his own
life for few brief moments by selling off ice lollies; his confidence that he
can buy a pair of jeans with self-earned money by working hard and ultimately,
his perpetual struggle to kill the brahmin bird in order to shatter the high
walls of caste instead of merely accepting the impossibility of such an event
are instances where Jabya registers moments of resistance within the narrative—resistance
that is borne out of a belief that refuses to accept one’s destiny as
preordained. By charting these moments of resistance within the cinematic
narrative, Manjule takes a departure from the popular discourse around Dalit
narratives wherein the victim is usually dependent on the generosity of the
pitiful, sympathetic, benevolent upper caste messiah for emancipation. However,
instead of creating a utopia with erased caste boundaries, the filmmaker
deliberately brings the audience back to the reality.
In the climax of the film, captured with
meticulously employed VFX shots and a handheld camera, the entire family gets
involved in hunting for the pigs on demand of the village heads. Jabya who
should be inside his school at this time is denied that opportunity because of
his family occupation[9];
he makes explicit remarks of his reluctance to be part of this hunting exercise
because of the shame that it engenders but his requests fall on the deaf ears
of his family members. His hiding behind the walls to see Shalu, now becomes an
act of hiding from her. His occupation, lower caste status and familial
affiliation i.e., the entire baggage that he had been hiding from his
classmates from a long time is suddenly revealed which renders him absolutely
vulnerable. Aarti Wani in her essay, “Love in the time of Pigs” explains the
climax of the film in the following words:
In an extended sequence at the end of
the film, Jabya stands exposed in front of the
whole school. In a dilapidated place
adjacent to the school is the pigs’ roosting ground,
and a reluctant, rebellious Jabya is
forced and publicly beaten by his father into helping
him catch the pigs. The spectacle of
Jabya’s thrashing, followed by his ragged family’s
desperate scramble to catch the
screeching, filthy pigs, attracts an audience; the upper
caste thugs hoot and yell obscenities
as they click and upload pictures of “Fandry
match” via their mobile phones, even
as Jabya’s classmates, Shalu included, have
ringside view of this
“entertainment”. Seething with humiliation and rage, Jabya finally
realises that even as Shalu, casually
sucking a candy, looks on, she can never “see”
him, and no magic ash can dissolve
the invisible walls that separate them.” (Wani 73)
In these moments of clear demarcation of
caste and class boundaries, in the wake of continuously calling Jabya as ‘fandry’, his classmates in alliance with
the upper caste adults render him in the words of Prof. Raj Kumar as, “unseeable,
unapproachable and un-hearable” (Kumar 1). Akin
to the entire savarna group which enjoys the spectacle of a family divested
of dignity and basic human need of self-worth, the spectators too stand
condemned of merely watching the show without realising the need for an
affirmative action. As Jabya carries the carcass of a pig in close proximity of
the images of all the venerated stalwarts of Maharashtra, they appear one after
the other as if lamenting this spectacle. However, Manjule obliterates the
entire power dynamics as Jabya who has been the subject of rejection all
through his life, gains complete realisation of his situation. The act of
shedding away of his innocence and simultaneously regaining recognition is made
visible as the perpetually hidden/hiding Jabya comes forward to hurl stones at
the upper caste thugs, to in return reject the entire system which rejected him.
In the last act of resistance, Nagraj Popatrao Manjule, the stone-breakers’ son,
makes this ‘fandry’ throw stones at
the ones who stand guilty of this visceral world, the real culprits who carry
the filth underneath their skins, the spectators.
III
It becomes imperative to remember that
that the story, screenplay, dialogues and direction of the film has been done
by Nagraj Popatrao Manjule himself for which he has been conferred with the
Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director at the 61st
National Film Awards and the grand Jury Prize at the Mumbai International
Festival besides several other national and international accolades. Over the past few years, filmmakers who belong to Dalit community such as
Neeraj Ghaiwan, Mari Selvaraj, Pa. Ranjith, Chaitanya Tamhane have successfully
tried to create films that are strongly rooted in caste-based narratives[10] in their own unique
manner. Behind the critical acclaim of Manjule’s low
budget film[11],
there lies more than a
single, unidimensional formulaic notion. His choice of non-actors as
characters, shooting within a village situated in remote corners of Maharashtra,
the raw realism with which he presents the daily lived experiences of his
characters, his poetic language that transmutes the social fabric of society on
screen through the visuals, the rustic flavour visible in the spoken dialect of
Kaikadi community, and most crucially, the employment of point of view shots to
assert his agency of ‘showing’, rather than being shown are ways in which he
deliberately takes a departure from the so-called mainstream cinema.
Moreover, his own characterisation as
Jabya’s confidante in the film in the role of Chankya paves a way for him to
overtly mark his presence on the screen. The entire backstory of Chankya is
traced in a conversation between Jabya and Pirya as they reveal that he married
an upper caste-class woman but her brothers thrashed him and took her back,
leaving him completely dejected. It is noteworthy that Chankya is aware that
neither the queen of his dreams nor the queen of carom shall be in store for
him. He encourages Jabya to not only pursue the girl he desires but also
encourages him to reject his traditional family occupation, even when the
latter has been unsuccessful in starting a new business. He not only physically
places Jabya on his shoulders during the procession of the local deity but
finds a deep affinity with him. In an interview with Irfan titled, “Guftagoo
with Nagraj Majule”, the filmmaker explicitly lays bare his fascination yet
disappointment with Bollywood films that terribly fell short to reveal the
harsh realities of his own life which became an impetus for him to create such
a film. He mentions how Kaikadi community that he depicts on screen, kills,
consumes, and survives on pigs akin to his own Vadar community—locating points
of convergence between his marginal self and its recreation on screen. He
further adds in the interview that he never faced any difficulty in casting a
non-actor as the protagonist since these actors live such characters on an
everyday basis, further underlining points of congruence between Jabya and
himself. At a public forum in Aurangabad[12],
Nagraj confessed that the fascination by the western jeans and t-shirt outfit,
ironing clothes to earn daily wages, playing halgi in a procession, working on
a construction site are incidents borrowed directly from his own life. In an
interview to Alaka Sahani, Manjule mentions how the film has been a “cathartic”
(Sahani) process that led him to relive the experience of humiliation as well
as realise individual agony which resulted from the desire to love,
irrespective of caste boundaries. To concretise it further, one can note how
the unusual physiognomy of the child protagonist as a dark, shy and hesitant
boy who is not only from the lower caste, but also far from the conventionally
prescribed notions of a ‘good looking’ actor, allows Manjule (both as Chankya
and as the director) in a literal and metaphorical manner to re(en)vision his
own lived reality on screen.
In the introduction of his book, Dalit
Personal Narratives: Reading Caste, Nation and Identity (2011) Prof. Raj
Kumar explains how assertion of the marginal self is an act of challenging the
status quo in the following words:
Dalits, who have been raising their
voice for quite some time, through their respective
personal narratives were rarely heard
of and thus systematically neglected in the
academic circle. One possible reason
for this neglect could be the fact that these voices
challenge the hegemony of the upper
caste and make way for assertion of the marginal
self. (Kumar 1)
This systematic neglecting of Dalit
personal narratives has become sharper and more acute within the visual space[13] recently;
but through this film, Nagraj Popatrao Manjule has been successfully able to
question the so-called canon while asserting his identity as a Dalit filmmaker within
neo-liberal multiplex culture. On the surface, the film belongs to a specific
medium yet, Manjule depicts the entire tradition of activists and philosophers
from Maharashtra through graffiti images, presents a rare site where spectators
hear the verses of Chokhamela in a modern-day school and suffuses his cinematic
text with calendars, posters, photo frames, placards to communicate visual cues
to the spectators. This amalgamation of multiple art forms to assert one’s life
story concords with his words in the beginning of this paper i.e., all the
forms available in the hands of the artist are mere tools to communicate the
views to the audience. If analysed carefully, this act establishes yet another
form of resistance—resistance to adhere to any single specific formulaic notion
of medium specificity. The film traces the transformative internal journey of
Jambuwant Kachru Mane from rejection to resistance and in doing so, it pricks
the conscience of the spectators till they are laden with transformative
potential to traverse another journey towards an inclusive society.
[1]
Nagraj Manjule’s first poetry collection in Marathi, Unhachya
Kataviruddh was conferred with the Bhairuratan Damani Sahitya Puraskar, besides several
other accolades. The above-mentioned lines are translated by Yogesh Maitreya
which appeared in an article titled, “Why Sairat filmmaker Nagraj Manjule’s
poetry may prove to be his more powerful Legacy” published in Gateway Litfest
on December 12, 2017.
[2]
Kaikadi community has been considered one of the criminal tribes during Indian
colonial period and continues to have a problematic existence in several parts
of rural Maharashtra even today. For a detailed examination of Kaikadi as
de-notified tribe, see “De-Notified and Nomadic Tribes: A Perspective” by
Milind Bokil published in Economic and Political Weekly.
[3]
The quote has been borrowed from the subtitles provided in Manjule’s interview
with Anupama Chopra which otherwise took place in Hindi language.
[4]
The fifteen minutes long film has been conferred with more than twenty awards
including the National Film Award for Best First Non-Feature
Film of a Director by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,
India to Nagraj Manjule in 2011 and National Film Award – Special Jury Award to
the child actor Suraj Pawar by the Directorate of Film Festivals by the
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India in 2011.
[5]
A 14th century untouchable poet from Mahar caste in Maharashtra, Saint
Chokhamela became widely popular for his songs and verses.
[6]
Nagraj Manjule’s film Sairat
(2016) which became the highest grossing Marathi film of all times obliterated
the gender dynamics within the film especially through the scene where the
upper caste female protagonist unabashedly stares at her lover within the
classroom space making him uncomfortable. The depiction of impossibility of
loving freely gained another dimension in the film as the actors move from
rural to urban space and lead a marital life but the love, hopes, and
aspirations culminate in honour killing.
[7]
During the post-harvest season in the villages of Maharashtra, auspicious dates
are announced and the local deity is decorated in the palanquin as shown in the
film. These festivities are directly linked to ancestral traditions and the
roles regarding holding the palanquin, deity, flags etc. are well defined as
per the caste status of an individual. Jabya yearns to play the traditional
instrument halgi during this procession but he has been assigned the role of
bearing the heavy weight lamps on his head.
[8]
The Annihilation of Caste (1936) is a book authored by Babasaheb
Ambedkar. Initially, it was prepared as a speech to be delivered in Lahore. The
phrase has been incorporated in the above paper to substantiate the argument.
[9]
For a detailed study of occupational discrimination as
part of social exclusion, see “Caste and Economic Discrimination” by Sukhdeo
Thorat and Katherine S. Newman published in The Problem of Caste: Essays
from Economic and Political Weekly edited by Satish Deshpande.
[10]
It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the cinematic aesthetics that
guide each of these film makers.
[11]
The film has been made within the budget of one crore
seventy-five lakh rupees and received a return of seven crores. For understanding
the film within the larger economic perspective of Marathi cinema, see “Fandry
and Sairat: Regional Cinema and Marginality” by Hrishikesh Ingle published in Economic
and Political Weekly. (Special Articles)
[12]
The information has been provided to the author by Mr.
Gopal Shrinath Tiwari, the dialogue writer of the Marathi film, Poet in Two
Worlds (2020) who had a personal interaction with the filmmaker in Aurangabad.
[13]
The active media trail on the issue of nepotism has
been largely restricted to class structures within cinema instead of shedding
due light on the caste biases within the cultural matrix of the film industry.
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