A decade old guilt called 'RECORDER'!
It was a decade old guilt. Every night after my rehearsal at NID's theatre group,'Khel', I used to sit at the institute foyer, with this somewhat senior, Saheb. I liked him in the first few glances, because he would be busy doing his work, which has always been a positive for me. He never acted as if he had lots of work, he seemed to 'enjoy' it. I have always the company of such people.
We started conversing and our late night conversations traveled from theatre to arts to ghosts and civilisations. These were interested topics for me and as soon as my rehearsal would get over at 12:30 or 1 at night, I would look for Saheb's company, and we would continue the chat.
Our discussions started taking a new tangent and we did not realise about the rural-urban gap in the country or n opportunity for us NIDians to work on it. I got to know that Saheb was a 'Santhal', a tribe in the East of my country.
In the mornings, we would just pass a smile or a formal 'Hello' and in the evening conversations we would go back to spirituality and socialism. These were conversations which had started from my mental travel, which eventually led me to travel physically. I shot the film in Jharkhand. I had honest plans of coming as I had shot a bit. This was a recce I had done. I had also taken down names of locations where I would shoot, but I was fortunate enough to 'keep' my eyes open and capture things which did not seem too strange then, but later when I started editing, it was pure gold for me, visually.
But that going back never happened as I fell ill and the film was shelved. I always had this guilt that I could not gift that film to my dear friend, Saheb. I remember his parents taking care of me really well. But one day, things changed when I got a facebook message from Saheb that his father had passed away. Do I have any images of him?
I was shattered. I was caught guilty. How could I not make the film? I started re-working on the footage and dug out a story which I always had, from the stock-footage I had. I had seen and re-seen it again and again, that I might get visuals for my story.
So, from 2009, we had reached 2019. Both of us had moved to various cities (viz. Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Udaipur, Chittaurgarh, Korba, Vijaywada, Kurukshetra and finally on Bajju on this side).
Bajju became the place where I had to finish this film. My mother was always behind my life to make this film, but when someone forces me to do any project for the sake of it, I tend to lose interest in it.
But one night outside my hut, looking at the full-moon, I realised that this film is not about the equipmwnt recorder but the man or men who had spent their lives collecting Santhal rituals. I was somehow chosen to share this with the world.
This also reminds me of an Emma Watson speech at the UN, shared by a close friend. I remember her words very clearly,
"If not me, who? If not now, when?"
I gulped my guilt, picked up my phone, called Ma and said, "I am making RECORDER..."
The link: 'RECORDER' A film by K. Harish Singh
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAPtCuTRjyA&feature=youtu.be)
We started conversing and our late night conversations traveled from theatre to arts to ghosts and civilisations. These were interested topics for me and as soon as my rehearsal would get over at 12:30 or 1 at night, I would look for Saheb's company, and we would continue the chat.
Our discussions started taking a new tangent and we did not realise about the rural-urban gap in the country or n opportunity for us NIDians to work on it. I got to know that Saheb was a 'Santhal', a tribe in the East of my country.
In the mornings, we would just pass a smile or a formal 'Hello' and in the evening conversations we would go back to spirituality and socialism. These were conversations which had started from my mental travel, which eventually led me to travel physically. I shot the film in Jharkhand. I had honest plans of coming as I had shot a bit. This was a recce I had done. I had also taken down names of locations where I would shoot, but I was fortunate enough to 'keep' my eyes open and capture things which did not seem too strange then, but later when I started editing, it was pure gold for me, visually.
But that going back never happened as I fell ill and the film was shelved. I always had this guilt that I could not gift that film to my dear friend, Saheb. I remember his parents taking care of me really well. But one day, things changed when I got a facebook message from Saheb that his father had passed away. Do I have any images of him?
I was shattered. I was caught guilty. How could I not make the film? I started re-working on the footage and dug out a story which I always had, from the stock-footage I had. I had seen and re-seen it again and again, that I might get visuals for my story.
So, from 2009, we had reached 2019. Both of us had moved to various cities (viz. Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Udaipur, Chittaurgarh, Korba, Vijaywada, Kurukshetra and finally on Bajju on this side).
Bajju became the place where I had to finish this film. My mother was always behind my life to make this film, but when someone forces me to do any project for the sake of it, I tend to lose interest in it.
But one night outside my hut, looking at the full-moon, I realised that this film is not about the equipmwnt recorder but the man or men who had spent their lives collecting Santhal rituals. I was somehow chosen to share this with the world.
This also reminds me of an Emma Watson speech at the UN, shared by a close friend. I remember her words very clearly,
"If not me, who? If not now, when?"
I gulped my guilt, picked up my phone, called Ma and said, "I am making RECORDER..."
The link: 'RECORDER' A film by K. Harish Singh
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAPtCuTRjyA&feature=youtu.be)
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