LOCKDOWN DIARIES
The pandemic struck the world like a bolt from nowhere. And while the privileged whined about loss of income and jobs, its essentially the poor and marginalised who took the brunt of its excruciating pain. While a large section of the civil society worked compassionately towards alleviating the pain of the down-trodden, the opportunistic ultra-rich just doubled and quadrupled their wealth.
In India, the poorest sections, the peasants and farmers were virtually abandoned by the state. It was particularly disheartening was to witness the images of millions of urban migrants walking 1000s of kilometers to their homes without food, water or money causing unprecedented pain and misery. As the indelible images poured in, it was eerily reminiscent of the 1947 partition. My lockdown animation short films 'Pravasi' 'Safar' and 'Samvaad' spewed from my grief and helplessness.
I was glad to get Taapsee Pannu's narration, as she readily agreed to come on board the moment she saw the films. Fortunate to have stellar artists like Vivekananda Roy Ghatak, Triparna Maiti & Srijoni Bardhan to visualise and execute the brilliant animation sequences. Each one of these artists were equally angered by what was happening to our country. These short films went viral instantly, garnering more than 50 millions views each within days. Here's Pravasi -
The words of 'Safar' are written by Magsaysay Award-winner, one of India's tallest social leaders - Anshu Gupta. His organisation - Goonj has helped millions of marginalised people during the lockdown. The project was supported by Soumitra Ranade and his team at Paperboat Studios. Apart from Taapsee Pannu's soulful narration in Hindi and Punjabi, we secured leading actors - Tisca Chopra (English), Nandita Das (Oriya and Gujarati), Dia Mirza (Urdu), Amruta Subhash (Marathi), Anindita Bose (Bengali) to do the narration in various languages. The film went on to win the BEST ANIMATED FILM award at the prestigious LAMPA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Moscow, a leading festival dedicated to socially relevant films and recognised by the UN.
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Though the pandemic was searingly painful world over, what happened in India was particularly distressing as the divisiveness unleashed against certain sections and communities touched a nadir. Biased TV, Fake news, Media and whatsapp propaganda exacerbated it further by fuelling the discrimination. All this, ironically in the backdrop of the talk of 'New India'. The need for reconciliation and dialogue was imperative. Hence was born 'Samvaad'.
My views on the crisis and the thought process behind 'Pravasi'.
There are a couple of more films in the offing. But more on that later...
The common root underneath all the crisis of the "so called civilized world" is that we have defined ourselves as separate from each other and separate from the world around us. We have not only done that with Nature but with Human Beings too. The Migrant Labour were the "others" who we used with an extractive approach. Realtors still stay SERVANTS ROOM instead of Domestic Support Staff Quarters, and every one seems okay with it, since SERVANT is part of the accepted vocabulary. Thank you for this series that holds up a mirror for us.