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A Dead Poet & Society
WSN Network
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It
is a slap on those politicians who for years failed to a crisis
coming, and then tried to simply deny it. In Punjab, for years,
the Badal government and earlier the Amarinder Singh regime,
tried hard to deny that any of the suicides in Punjab's villages
had anything to do with debt related problems. |
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 At
a time when Punjab's farmers, largely Sikhs, are caught in a
cleftsick and government apathy knows no bounds, the suicide rate is
touching one a day. A survey commissioned by the Akali Dal-BJP
government and conducted by the
Punjab
Agricultural University has returned figures that will put any
claims of politicians about development to shame. But such is the
widespread disconnect of politicians and opinion makers from reality
that neither Sukhbir Singh Badal nor senior Congress leaders refrain
from the talk of turning one or the other region of Punjab into
California.
For many weeks,
thanks to a strike over revenue sharing issues between multi-plexes
and film distributors, people in
India
remained deprived from new releases. That most such releases,
emanating from Bollywood, are only further examples of a depraved
form of entertainment is a separate point, but what a latest
offering from Marathi cinema's tradition has shown is how a society,
witnessing daily suicides of farmers caught in debt trap, can have
such depravity served as entertainment and then wallow in it.
Meet Shrikrishna
Kalamb. Poet-farmer. Sorry, you can't really meet him flesh and
blood. He isn't any more. He died as a farmer, but he lived as a
poet. He wanted to live as a farmer, but a debt of $250 was too much
to repay. Five unmarried daughters, poor rains and apathetic regime.
In March of last year, Kalamb took his own life.
“My
death will be like untimely rain/My death will probably be termed
foolish/I have left here hanging myself as an exhibit....”
 Kalamb wrote
this poem two days before his death. Satish Manwar, a debutant film
director, was scouting for a subject, but in his death, Kalamb chose
him instead. The Damned Rain (Gabhricha Paus) is a stark film
that not only shames those who were cursing multiplex owners for not
ending the strike because they wanted to see some pelvic grinding on
big screen but also those who talk of turning poverty stricken areas
of countryside into California.
"My life is
different; my death will be like untimely rain."
The film is very
timely. As it garners great acclaim from Los to Durban to Rotterdam
to Ruhelkhand, it is a slap on those politicians who for years
failed to a crisis coming, and then tried to simply deny it. In
Punjab,
for years, the Badal government and earlier the Amarinder Singh
regime, tried hard to deny that any of the suicides in
Punjab's
villages had anything to do with debt related problems.
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About Kalamb's fight
Kalamb struggled for some time to eke out a living from his five
acres of unproductive land. The plot brought in little money and
10 years ago he had been forced to sell off a section. His
attempt to set up a threshing plant in his village also failed.
A decade later and owing more than 20,000 rupees (£250) to the
bank and a minimum of 50,000 in private loans he was confronted
by having to sell some of what little remained. That troubled
him greatly. He was also upset that his eldest daughter had been
forced to give up her education to find a job to help the
family. He was contemplating selling remaining land. He had
asthma and could not work hard in the fields. |
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The Damned Rain
comes at a time when top politicians both in the Congress as well as
the Akali Dal and the BJP are trying to torpedo a move to ensure
direct payments for foodgrain bought by the government agencies to
the farmers. Instead, they want all this money routed through the
aarhtiyas who also double up as money lenders and have deep pockets
to fund elections for political parties.
Kalamb lost his
life in Vidarbha where a farmer commits suicide every eight hours,
as per the data from the last one decade. More than one and a half
lakh farmers have so far taken their lives. Unfortunately, suicides
are not just statistics. There seems to be a tendency in
India
that one man's death is somehow less horrible than the death of a
lakh and a half. The Damned Rain focuses on personal plights and
predicaments. It is a window for us to focus on larger issues.
A review in
Outlook magazine puts it succinctly: "The debts, loans, inadequate
yields and insufficient compensations—these offer the backdrop
against which two different viewpoints collide. There is the lazy,
pragmatic, FM radio-obsessed Patil who has given up on farming,
knowing that what his land produces won’t add up to much. And then
there is Kisna, who will continue to toil until death parts him from
his farm....The narrative is built on the twin motifs of rain and
death. The rain, capricious as ever, makes the farmers wait
eternally and then wreaks havoc when it finally arrives. Death is
the only certainty in this bleak landscape, with funeral processions
winding matter-of-factly through the village’s bylanes with alarming
regularity. Manwar says he has tried to “look at the reality of
death differently, examining its psychological impact”."
 It is time we
temper our notions of entertainment and the use of cinema as a
medium to focus on the psyche of those alive and struggling for
survival. For those who are sold out on promises of turning
Jalalabad into
California,
thee one song in the film is enough of a lesson where a wretched
village life is pitched against the “smooth roads and vulgar
illuminated sky” of the big city.
What is more
beautiful about the film is that it celebrates the little joys of
life even in abject poverty though the climax still leaves one
shaken out of a stupor.
Kalamb lost the
struggle to eke out a living out of misery but his death has left
his daughters even braver. "My father died as a farmer, in perpetual
debt and worries. But he lived as a poet, and will remain immortal
in his poems," the eldest daughter Usha says. Hers is a fight
against hopelessness, worthlessness, helplessness.
Here's a poem
that will give you a peep into Kalamb's mind.
Vasare
(Calves)
Amhi vasare vasare, muki upasi vasare
Gaya
panhavato amhi, chor kalatat dhar
Tapa tapa
gham unarato, unarato bhuivar
Moti pikavato
amhi, tari upasi lekare."
"We are calves,
dumb hungry calves
We tend to the
cows, thieves walk away with milk and cream
We sweat and
sweat on the fields
We cultivate
pearls, but our children remain hungry."
29
July 2009
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