All posts by Atikh Rashid

A journalist with a national English daily. Interested in cinema, humour and politics.

A film festival is born: Story of IFFI’s origins 67 years ago!

February 4, 2019 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

The first IFFI was organised by the Films Division with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s “blessings”, at a paltry budget of Rs 1 lakh.

ATIKH RASHID

THE International Film Festival of India was born in Bombay in January 1952 but it was conceived six months prior in the Kashmir valley. The idea of organising such a festival of motion pictures, which would be a first for the East, was proposed to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru by Films Division’s then Chief Producer Mohan Bhavnani when he was visiting Srinagar for a political event. Bhavnani, a filmmaker trained in Germany who had made several silent films after his return to India and was appointed to head the Films Division after it was established in 1948, had recently returned from a visit to Paris where he had attended a meeting of Film Experts Committee of UNESCO and was toying with the idea to hold India’s own film festival.

In an essay written in 1983, filmmaker K L Khandpur has described how the decision to organise the first film festival came about. As per his account, he was shooting a documentary for Films Division (Facing the Facts, 1951) in Srinagar with his crew when, on a Sunday afternoon, Bhavnani- who was staying in a houseboat at Dal Lake – summoned him. Bhavnani was to meet the then Information and Broadcasting Minister R R Diwakar and Prime Minister Nehru, who was visiting Srinagar to speak at a rally organised by National Conference ahead of the state’s plan to hold elections for the Constituent Assembly in August-September that year, later that day.

Weekly Screen announcing the government plans to hold an international film festival in India in its September 21, 1951 edition. (Credit: Screen)

Although the initial plan was to hold a ‘competitive film festival’ and the event was publicised such, the idea was later dropped after the International Federation of Motion Pictures Associations (IFMPA) objected to the prospect saying “only Venice and Cannes had been granted permission to hold competitive festivals” in that year. The festival was then categorised as ‘non-competitive representative show’.

Curtains went up on January 24 at the New Empire Cinema. I&B Minister Diwakar chaired the opening ceremony as PM Nehru, who was supposed to attend the event missed it due to some reason. It was a star-studded event with who’s who of the Bombay film industry attending it.

A total of 12 foreign countries had sent in their delegations to participate in the event. The largest among those was from USSR which had sent 13 members headed by Deputy Minister of Cinematography N Semenov, while Chinese had sent one with six members. The American delegation was headed by film director Frank Capra. Notwithstanding the Indo-Pak tension over Kashmir, Pakistan had sent a delegation consisting of actor Swarna Lata, director Shaukat Hussain headed by Sardar A Rehman.

Actor Suraiya with Hollywood director Frank Capra who headed the US delegation to first IFFI. (Photo Credit: Films Division)

The festival offered a bouquet of 40 international films and over 100 short films that were showcased, In Mumbai, the film shows were held at three open-air theatres that were erected at Azad Maidan apart from four other regular cinema houses namely the New Empire, Excelsior, Strand and Kum Kum. Among the films that proved popular among the audience were the Italian films Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948), Rome Open City (Rosselini, 1945) and Miracle in Milan (De Sica, 1951); Japanese film Yukiwarisoo (Minoru Mtasui, 1951); British short film Dancing Fleece ( Wilson-Reiniger, 1950,) Soviet war film Fall of Berlin (Mikheil Chiaureli, 1950) and Hollywood films The Greatest Show on Earth (DeMille, 1952) and An American in Paris (Minelli, 1951). Indian entries for the festival were Awara (Raj Kapoor, 1951), Babla (Agradoot, 1951), Patala Bhairavi (Ketiri Reddy, 1951), Amar Bhoopali (V Shantaram, 1951) among feature films and Adivasi (National Education and Information Films) and Lest I Forget Thee (Singh Brothers) among documentaries.

In Delhi and Madras huge road parades of Indian film stars and visiting delegates were held that received huge response from the crowd which, in Frank Kapra’s words, made Indian politicians realise for the first time “the power of Indian film stars”. In Madras, a friendly cricket match between film starts was held at Corporation Stadium of Madras where Raj Kapoor’s “deadly bowling” grounded the opposing team to much delight of over 15,000 audience members.

PM Nehru attended the inauguration of the Delhi leg of the festival and President Rajendra Prasad hosted the guests and Indian film fraternity at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

An open-air screen erected for first IFFI at Azad Maidan in Mumbai (then Bombay). Photo Credit: International Film Festival of India)

Virchandra Dharamsey was a lad of 17 at that time. Now 84 and a well-regarded film historian, he recalls his experience of visiting the festival in Bombay. “In my memories, the first IFFI was like a fair. My interest in cinema has just begun at that time but I knew nothing about international cinema. I can hazily recall watching De Sica’s Miracle in Milan in an open theatre at the Azad Maidan. I also caught glimpses of several other films such as Japanese film Yukiwariso, (Italian) Rome: Open City and Bengali film Babla from the side without having to buy the ticket,” said Dharamsey.

The Film Enquiry Committee Report

Among the factors that led to the organising of the first IFFI including PM Nehru’s own interest in art and culture, an important one was the report of the Film Inquiry Committee that was submitted to the government exactly three months before the Srinagar meeting between Bhavnani, Diwakar and Nehru. The inquiry committee was headed by S K Patil – former member of Constituent Assembly of India and who later become Mayor of Bombay – and was constituted in 1949 to, among other things, suggest “what measures should be adopted to enable films in India to development into an effective instrument for promotion of national culture, education and healthy entertainment”. Among the members of the committee were filmmakers V Shantaram and B N Sircar.

After exhaustive research, interviews with over 300 prominent personalities including filmmakers, educationists, public representatives and journalists and studying memorandums submitted by over 250 important individuals, the committee submitted a report which called for widespread changes to improve its financial management and aesthetic quality of the films. The committee took the view that although the Indian film industry made significant progress on the technical aspects, it was lacking in content and the “medium’s potential for the education of the masses and nation-building” was not being utilised. The committee observed that for the Indian film, “the story remains a secondary consideration”, the play-back system is over-exploited, the dance sequences are used indiscriminately, the comedies “degenerates into the burlesque” and “hilarity and buffoonery is expressed through meaningless grins and gestures”.

In fact, the motive of the government to ‘reform Indian cinema’ by exposing the Indian filmmakers to better cinema traditions elsewhere in the world was evident in the message Prime Minister Nehru sent for the inauguration of the festival. Effectively rebuking the Indian filmmakers, he said in the message: “India, I’m told, is the second biggest film producer in the world, coming only after the United States of America. This quantity production is impressing, but I would like to lay stress on quality. I hope that the Indian film industry, which has made such great progress in the past, will make every effort to improve the quality of films also.”

First IFFI’s influence

Interaction with filmmakers from abroad and exposure to international films coming from Japan, Italy, France and Russia at the first film festival did influence the discourse around cinema in the country and also nudged filmmakers to experiment with the medium. This was especially true with the aesthetic of ‘realism’ as espoused in the neo-realist films that came from Italy and were the most appreciated among the foreign lot.

Do-Bigha-Zamin — Still from Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen.

Among those who were directly and admittedly influenced by Italian films they saw at IFFI 1952, was Bimal Roy who immediately embarked upon making Do Bigha Zamin (1953) promising himself that it would be “as start and austere and will be shot on location” like Bicycle Thieves. For the film, he largely chose his caste from IPTA actors as opposed to well-known film stars and shot a majority of the film in streets of Calcutta and a nearby village. There are many obvious thematic similarities between Do Bigha Zamin and Bicycle Thieves with streets of Calcutta replacing those of Rome and the land-plot standing in for the stolen bicycle in the Italian masterpiece.

It is well known De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves was behind Satyajit Ray quitting his job in the advertisement industry and deciding to make his first film Pather Panchali (1952). (Although he had watched the film during his six-month stay in London in 1951, much before it was shown in Calcutta as part of IFFI).

“Thus within days of the festival, Italian neorealism provided a specific and concrete rallying point around what had been since the early 1930s an endemic Indian disavowal of popular cinema,” says film scholar Neepa Majumdar further arguing that the brush with neo-realism during first IFFI affected both the “parallel cinema movement” which developed in the with Ray, Ghatak and others but affected the thematic and aesthetic concerns of mainstream commercial products such as Booth Polish (Prakash Arora, 1954) and Footpath (Zia Sarhadi, 1953).

The festival also gave a fillip to the film society movement in India – by creating interest for world cinema among the locals and making the job of those who ran the societies easier. “Above all, the first IFFI which sourced films from various diplomatic missions in India, opened up a new avenue of sourcing films, almost free for the fledging film societies,” wrote VK Cherian in his book India’s Film Society Movement: The Journey and Its Impact.

The festival was wound up in Calcutta on March 5 1952. As per a gossip column published in ‘filmindia’ magazine’s April edition, the Films Division had actually earned a profit of Rs 7 lakh from the festival.

As per Dharamsey, the interest in world cinema that festival kindled among local Bombay cine-goers caused regular film theatres to play international hits (outside Hollywood) soon after the first IFFI. “I distinctly remember that months after the festival, Liberty Cinema ran Kurosawa’s Roshomon, De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves and Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear as regular shows,” he recalled.

Despite the success of the first festival, Indians would wait for nine years for the IFFI to return with its second edition in 1961.

(This essay was originally published in The Indian Express on November 23, 2019)

Cinephilia

‘An artist is not a toy in the audience’s hand’, says filmmaker Umesh Kulkarni

November 22, 2018 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

Kulkarni, the maker of contemporary Marathi classics Valu (2008), Deool (2010) & Vihir (2009) on exploring the non-fiction genre and his latest documentary, titled Kumbh, which chronicles the biggest gathering of humans.

Marathi film maker Umesh Kulkarni at his residence. Express photo by Arul Horizon, 17/05/2018, Pune

ATIKH RASHID

SINCE his very first feature film, Valu (The Wild Bull, 2008), filmmaker Umesh Kulkarni found his own audience base across Maharashtra and beyond, which only grew with his subsequent films — Vihir (2009), Deool (2011), which he directed, and Masala (2012), Pune 52 (2013) which he produced. But it’s been a long break for Kulkarni since his last release as director Highway (2015), which did not do too well in cinemas.

So where’s this filmmaker who turned the tide for Marathi films in the late 2000s, which were facing both aesthetic and commercial challenges, with Valu? Apparently, Kulkarni (42) is immersed in exploring new possibilities that have opened up in the non-fiction genre. He has spent the last two years making a documentary on the Kumbh Mela and is in the process of making another on the Wada culture in old Pune. At the same time, Kulkarni has also launched a documentary film club with the help from artist Raju Sutar and National Film Archive of India (NFAI), with an aim to showcase best works from Indian non-fiction filmmaking tradition to the general public.

Still from Kularni’s student project Girni which he made while studying at Film and Television Institute of India.

“In 2009, I had made a documentary for FTII called Three of us. It was shown at several international festivals including the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IFDA), which the biggest festival of documentary films in the world. While visiting the festival to present my film, the exposure to non-fiction form opened an entire new world to me. It was there that I realised that feature films and documentaries are not two separate, distinct forms with fixed boundaries. The way films are being made internationally, the boundaries between these two genres are getting merged and filmmakers are trying to explore the area that lies in between,” says Kulkarni, adding that some of the documentaries that he watched at the festival influenced him and left a lasting impact.

Back home, he observed that while India had a certain tradition of non-fiction filmmaking, there were no avenues for these films, with filmmakers struggling with the release and screenings of the films. “In many countries, there are festivals dedicated to non-fiction films, in some places there are television channels exclusively for documentaries. In India, although we had filmmakers like Mani Kaul, Shyam Benegal and others making documentaries and the Films Division funding a great number of them, there was very little exposure to the common public,” says Kulkarni. The film club, he adds, has recently screened Kamal Swaroop’s Pushkar Puran (2017), the first-ever retrospective of Amit Dutta in India, as well as non-fiction work by Mani Kaul.

Meanwhile, Kulkarni also started working on his own non-fiction projects. Kumbh, which he finished recently, was shot over several years chronicling the biggest gathering of humans. The film was selected at IDFA, New York Indian Film Festival and Kerala International Film Festival (KIFF).

“Kumbh is not a conventional documentary, as it tries to explore the space in the margins of fiction and non-fiction. I am at present also working on another documentary on a wada in old Pune where my grandma used to live. I have spent many days of my childhood there. Now, all the families that used to live there have shifted to their own apartments. I’m trying to explore the texture of life that the wada offered to its residents and how it has changed,” says Kulkarni, adding that he has decided to make a documentary or short film between every two feature films.

While he’s following his changing interests, doesn’t he feel that it may take away his fan base which may rather like him to stick to his flair — comical realism with a social message. “As an artist, I feel that I have to keep trying to find newer ways of expression. An artist can’t be a toy in the hands of the audience. If I continue to do what I have been doing, then I become too predictable and it gets boring. Also, we should give an opportunity to a different art form to get established. It may take some time as had happened in other cases such as Impressionism in painting or short story in literature. People resist, ridicule at first but later they accept if the movement has its merits,” says Kulkarni.

Cinephilia

Mythology as a political tool

November 15, 2018 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

Independent filmmaker Kamal Swaroop talks about his fascination with mythology, Battle of Banaras, and the controversies around the latest edition of IFFI.

ATIKH RASHID

FILM director Kamal Swaroop, whose last project Battle of Banaras was blocked by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in 2015, has returned with Pushkar Puran. It is the opening film of the Non-Feature section of Indian Panorama at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. In an interview, Swaroop talks about his fascination with mythology, Battle of Banaras, and the controversies around the latest edition of IFFI.

Why did you decide to return to Pushkar again after your previous documentary on the Pushkar Mela?

I go to Pushkar every year, and shoot something everytime. While Image Meets the Shadow (2004) was about myths, and how people interact with them, Pushkar Puran is inspired by Italian writer Roberto Calasso’s Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India. The film focuses on ‘the search for the fifth head of Bramha’, which Shiva had cut and carried away with him, and the Ashwamedh Yajna that happens there.

Since Om Dar Ba Dar (1988), you have been engaging with mythology. Where does this interest come from?

I grew up listening to myths. I’m also deeply interested in archaeology and its relation to mythology. In our country, people use mythology as a political tool. Myths are moulded to suit financial, social and political needs.

Battle of Banaras didn’t see an India release although it was appreciated abroad. This year, Pushkar Puran is opening the non-feature section of Indian Panorama at IFFI so your work is being recognised by the same political structure which blocked you in the past.

It’s a matter of chance. They thought that Battle of Banaras was an anti-government film; it isn’t true. But the CBFC must have thought of blocking it to safeguard the government. In fact, Pushkar Puran wasn’t submitted to the CBFC, before it was sent for IFFI. Now I have submitted it to them, and I am expecting trouble. They might say that it propagates or portrays wrong myths. They might even point out cruelty against animals.

As someone who has had a long association with Pushkar, how have you seen the town changing?

About 35-40 years ago, when I would visit Pushkar, there wasn’t much tourism there. Only the villagers would come to the mela to sell and buy animals. There was little employment. After tourists started coming in, it grew and became a prosperous town. That was also the time when the state government realised that Pushkar is a big tourist attraction. Nowadays, the government pours in money to create a spectacle. It’s become an event which is managed by several event management firms. Homes have turned into hotels and restaurants.

At IFFI this year, Nude by Ravi Jadhav and S Durga by Sanal Sasidharan have been dropped from the Indian Panorama section. How do you see this?

It’s everybody’s own fight. I didn’t get a CBFC certificate for Om Dar Ba Dar for two years, and it was rejected for the Indian Panorama section. Battle of Banaras was blocked from releasing in India. I didn’t shout about it. If it’s not working, it’s not working. I didn’t go crazy about people not accepting the films or blocking them. I just don’t think about these things.

How do you see the controversy of IFFI dropping films?

There’s no need to block or stop the films. Nobody can do much harm specially with films. There’s no need (for the government) to get touchy about it. If the jury has selected them, then respect the jury; their selection is like a judgement.

We hear you are returning to fiction after Om Dar Ba Dar?

Yes. The film is called Omniyam, based on The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien. It’s about a person who is dead but he doesn’t know it yet. It’s a comic-crime thriller.

You are also making a film about Kashmiri Pandits?

I’m shooting in Ujjain, Jaipur, Ajmer and Meerut, where my four sisters live. The film does not focus on the Kashmiri Pandit issue alone, nor on conflict and terrorism. It’s mostly about a family which left Kashmir in 1958, and whose members are now scattered in various cities. Their children don’t speak Kashmiri anymore. What the projects seeks to examine is the sense of belonging and the idea of home. Have they reconciled with their new identity? What happens to the Kashmiri identity when they become a part of the national mainstream?

Covering India Invisible, Reportage

Why residents of Parbhani are paying the highest price for petrol?

September 27, 2018 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

Fuel stations in this dusty town in Marathwada are selling petrol and diesel dearer than any other place in the country, as Parbhani is situated farthest from the nearest oil depot. The national attention the town is getting thanks to its precarious situation is troubling and amusing to its residents at the same time.

On September 27 2018, Parbhani residents were buying a litre of petrol at Rs 92.05 and diesel at Rs 79.25. (Photo: Atikh Rashid)

ATIKH RASHID / SEPT 27, PARBHANI

EACH time NDTV India’s Ravish Kumar does a ‘Prime Time’ show on the issue of fuel price hike, youngsters in Parbhani brace themselves with cellphones firmly in their hands. As the graphics of cities and towns paying the highest price for petrol in the country are flashed on the TV screen, the cameras click to secure the moment. Parbhani, their hometown whose name hardly rings a bell outside Maharashtra or even within, always tops the list. These pictures are then circulated on social media with a sense of pride.

The fact that the town can ‘boast’ of something, at last, is enough for them. The last time it had made national news was in November 2003 when a bomb ripped through a crowded local mosque injuring 31 namazis gathered for Friday prayers. Itwas the first incident of a bomb blast at a Muslim place of worship.

On Wednesday, fuel stations in the district were selling petrol at Rs 92.05 a litre and diesel at Rs 79.27 a litre on Wednesday. And yes that was the most expensive fuel anywhere in India.

People of Parbhani, a town with a population just above 3 lakh, have very little they could boast of. The only thing that people find worth mentioning is that it headquarters the Marathwada Agricultural University, one of the four state agricultural universities in Maharashtra. The town hardly gets a national attention.

“We are used to reading and watching news about what’s happening elsewhere. Nothing happens here so we don’t make it to national news,” said Hasib Shaikh, a college student.

As per petrol pump owners, the reason for the districts in the mainland Maharashtra paying the highest price for petroleum despite enjoying a good railway and road connectivity, is the distance they are situated from the nearest refinery or the fuel depot.

As per Sanjay Deshmukh, President of Parbhani Petrol Dealers Association, there are two depots of the three oil companies namely Indian Oil, Hindustan Petrolium and Bharat Petrolium are situated in Manmad and Solapur. While the former is 311 kms away, the latter is 250 kms from Parbhani. Hence, if petrol price in Manmad is Rs 90.78 per litre there, cost of transport including toll tax adds about Rs 1 rupee and some paisa to per litre cost.

“There’s not a single refinery or a depot in Marathwada. If the depots were closer, the petrol price could have been slightly cheaper,” said Deshmukh.

‘Residents of one of the most backword districts are paying the highest for fuel’

Parbhani was among the 90 ‘minority concentrated backward districts’ in the country with “unacceptably low” infrastructure and social amenities as per a survey done by Ministry of Minorities Affairs in 2007. As per locals, in absence of any employment opportunities in the town, a majority of youngsters migrate to Aurangabad, Pune or Mumbai. There’s little for the educated to stick around.

This year a deficient monsoon has made things more difficult as the district is already staring at crop failure in the Kharif. Even though the end of monsoon is close, the district has so far received only 592.4 mm rains as opposed to the normal rainfall of 741 .6mm thereby falling short by 20 per cent. Inflation in fuel prices have only compounded the problems of the residents.

“You can gauge the state of the local economy from the fact that the average sale of petrol per customer is Rs 50. About 80 per cent of the customers that visit our petrol pump buy just about half a litre of petrol. Less than 10 per cent customers spend Rs 500 at one go,” said Musa Shaikh, an attendant at Bhikulal Petrol Pump. “It’s a big irony that residents of one of the most backward city are paying highest for the petrol.”

Situation is equally bad in Nanded and Jalna, which border Parbhani, in terms of price of fuel. (Pic: Atikh Rashid)

Situation is equally bad in Nanded (Rs 91.02) and Jalna (Rs 91.16) which had made to the list of most backward 115 districts in the country published by Niti Ayog earlier this year. In fact all seven districts in Marathwada, the drought prone region in Maharashtra, have crossed Rs 90 a litre mark about a week ago and are now inching towards a 100. The value added tax levied by Maharashtra on fuel is highest in the country (39.12 per cent in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane and 38.11 per cent for rest of Maharashtra for petrol) which includes surcharges such as drought cess, Krishi Kalyan cess and cess to make up for loss suffered by state during ban of sale of liquor along highways.

The spiralling price has expected effects on the local economy with prices for transport, vegetables and other essential goods going up. “Earlier we used to charge Rs 10 for a shared rickshaw ride from Railway Station to Jintur Naka. Now we are taking Rs 15 for the same distance. We lose some business due to the hike but if we continue to operate on the old rates, we don’t make any money,” said Akshay Kale, an auto-rickshaw driver..

In Parbhani, Motorists often carry bottles to measure petrol before it’s poured in the vehicle tanks to ensure that they are not cheated while buying the expensive commodity. (Photo: Atikh Rashid)

At fuel stations people often carry one litre water bottle to make sure that they are getting the right quantity. They ask the attendant to put the hose inside the bottle instead of the fuel tank and observe if it’s the right quantity and the attendant is not cheating them by using some trick.

“We can’t afford to get cheated by the pump when the fuel is so expensive,” says a customer as he downs the bottle carefully in the fuel tank making sure that every drop lands in the tank.

On Wednesday, several opposition parties organised a protest rally in the dusty playground off the state transport bus station. At this rally, held opposite District Collector’s office in the town, speaker after speaker pointed out, in sarcastic tone, how the Central Government has ‘managed’ to give Parbhani an identity of its own on the national map.

“Outside Maharashtra, many had not even heard the name: Parbhani. But thanks to Modi Government, today the entire country has come to know our existence,” said a speaker, his tongue firmly in the cheek. “These days, whenever we travel to other cities, people ask us ‘Why is it that petrol is most expensive in Parbhani?’. How the hell we are supposed to know?,” he says adding a hint of anger to his tone as the audience laughs.

Cinephilia

Breaking Barriers

September 25, 2018 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

Jordanian author Fadi Zaghmout on his popular blog The Arab Observer and writing on subjects considered taboo in his homeland

ATIKH RASHID

IN 2006, Jordanian author Fadi Zaghmout started a blog that discussed issues pertaining to individualism and sexual freedom in the Arab society. The blog, written predominantly in English, proved popular among Arab netizens as it delved into social issues that were not addressed traditionally by the media in Jordan. However, when he decided to write his debut novel a few years later, Zaghmout turned to his mother tongue — Arabic. According to him, the decision was an outcome of his urge to contribute to the discourse in his local language, when there weren’t many liberal voices.

Though the blog was a convenient tool to spread ideas, it had limited audience. “I felt the blog was limiting with regard to the audience I wanted to reach. Since the issue of sexual freedom and body rights was highly censored in Jordan before the internet, I thought maybe I can explore the same themes I talk about on my blog using traditional media. I wanted these discussions to be printed in a book in Arabic to reach more people. The transition wasn’t easy but during my years of blogging I practised writing short stories and short film scripts, which helped me compile a list of ideas and themes that helped me write Aroos Amman (The Bride of Amman),” says Zaghmout in an email interview. The UAE-based author will be in Pune next week for the Pune International Literary Festival.

The novel proved to be an instant success and also raked controversies for dealing with taboo themes such as homosexuality, inter-religious marriage and more freedom to women, among others. The novel has five main characters — four of these are women, each with her own predicament, and a gay Muslim man who is married to a woman — with each trying to cope with the societal pressure to conform to their gender roles. It looks at the institution of marriage as a means to regulate sexuality, which is seldom successful. It critiques the Arab society for still following age-old beliefs, expecting a woman to be a virgin before marriage, while a man is responsible for building and maintaining the household.

While women readers wrote to him saying the book is a source of strength for them, some even went to the extent of calling it their “personal constitution”. The novel’s portrayal of women and their eternal struggle to claim lost ground has earned Zaghmout a sobriquet, from those who hate his work: the feminist mouthpiece. “I take it as a compliment. I really love it when a woman calls me and asks how can I be very accurate in describing the emotions of women. Having said that, to me it is more than being a ‘female mouthpiece’, it is about social justice. I am a mouthpiece for gender equality, sexual freedom and body rights that help us all live a better life. I believe that strict gender roles are harmful for both men and women equally,” he says.

Since Bride of Amman, Zaghmout has written two more novels, Heaven on Earth (2017) and Laila and the Lamb (2018). The latter features a “sexually dominant” woman as its protagonist. As per reports, Jordianian authorities saw it as a work with “a problematic premise” and stopped the entry of the book into the country. Zaghmout, however, feels that the themes and characters that populate his works come from real men and women who exist in Arab society. “There are indeed many homosexual men in Jordan and the Arab world who opt to marry a woman in order to fit in a society where homosexuality is still not accepted and same sex marriage is not legal. The same applies for women who fall in love with men from another religion, as marriage is still a religious institution in Jordan. I usually build my characters by borrowing characteristics from people I know,” he says.

On his maiden visit to India, Zaghmout hopes to learn about Indian society, which he sees as one with diverse cultures and attitudes where women may face the same prejudices as Arab women. “Although I have few Indians friends in UAE, I am yet to know more about Indian society. I have the impression that India is a large country with diverse cultures and attitudes. I understand that patriarchy is a dominant force across modern cultures and I can see that Indian women face many of the same prejudices Arab women are facing these days, especially the pressure to get married and adhere to strict gender roles,” says Zaghmout.

Covering India Invisible, Long Reads

Toilet as a home

September 16, 2018 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

Many migrants to Pune, from a range of social backgrounds, work as caretakers of public toilets in the city. While they often face ridicule and abuse because of their jobs, the perk of a free accommodation in an expensive city, even if that accommodation happens to be within the toilet-complex used by hundreds, makes it a viable option for them.

Raj Kumar Singh climbs up through an opening to reach his residence located on the second storey of a toilet block in Chinchwad. (Photo: Atikh Rashid)

Name: Raju Sawant. Address: Sarvajanik Shauchalaya, Tilak Road, Pune-30

This must be the least flattering address in whole of Pune. However, for five member Sawant family, it’s a reality of life. Sawant (52) works as a caretaker at the public toilet and stays in a small room constructed within the lavatory block along with his family – wife and three sons. The family has been staying like this since 2003 when he migrated to Pune from Latur in interior Maharashtra in search of a livelihood.

Sawant is not alone. There are as many as 349 families and individuals in Pune and adjacent Pimpri Chinchwad who have taken up the job to maintain public toilets constructed by municipal corporations of two cities because of the accompanying benefit of free accommodation in the expensive cities.

Those working as resident caretakers for public toilets in Pune and PimpriChinchwad mostly come from eastern and central districts of Uttar Pradesh, north-eastern parts of Bihar as well as from Marathwada and Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

The model is not unique to Pune. The NGOs which adopt the toilets and then recruit caretakers to look after them, operate on the same model in various cities across the country. Sulabh International, one of the NGOs and biggest among them, has as many as 8500 toilets with residential caretakers across India.

Information obtained from official sources shows that Pune city has a total of 1192 toilet blocks – each block consists of separate urinals and lavatories for men and women – constructed by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). Of these, 797 are community toilets meant to be used by slum-dwellers who don’t have a latrine at home and 395 are public toilet located at public places such as roads, parks, transport hubs and market places. Of the total, 294 are maintained by non-governmental organizations (rest maintained by PMC’s own staff) who typically adopt them for a tenure of 30 years. In Pimpri Chinchwad, there are 874 toilet blocks of which 55 are maintained by resident caretakers.

Only formula to success

Arun Mishra at the cash counter at the lavatory in Shivajinagar, Pune. The brown door behind him opens in his residence.

As per experts in the field and those working with NGOs such as Sulabh International, SPARC (society for the promotion of area resource centers), which are involved in construction and maintenance of public toilets in various cities, the only viable option for a public toilet to remain in business successfully in the long run is to make living arrangements for the caretakers in the toilet complex.

Sulabh came up with the model of constructing a cottage for the caretaking team in every toilet it builds in 1970s. This model assures that the team is available for work 24×7, the lavatories are well maintained and, most importantly, it makes recruiting caretakers for toilets much easier due to the offer of free ccommodation.

“We believe that without having a residential caretaker a public toilet can’t succeed. And no caretaker will agree to work at a public toilet in a big city without having accommodation facility,” said Santosh Kumar Singh, Deputy Controller (Admin), Sulabh. “Even though number of users is considerable, many people don’t pay the user fee and hence revenue generated by public toilet is not enough to pay a high enough monthly salary to Sanitation Officer (euphemism for ‘toilet cleaner’) and Sanitation Manager (caretaker) which will enable them to sustain in the big city and make some savings,” said Singh.

Once the caretakers (which can be a group of men or a family), have a place to stay, the biggest expense is taken care of. Now they have to spend only on food and other minor expenses thus allowing them to save a big portion of the monthly earning.

As per Vinod Pathak, who has been working in the field for over 25 years, in many cases families take up the responsibility with one or two members looking after the lavatories while others – wife, sons, brothers or relatives – work elsewhere in the city and earn to supplement the family income. If it’s not a family, it’s a group of related or closely acquainted men some of whom work outside as mechanics, labourers, cooks, helpers taking advantage of the accommodation at the toilet complex.

Molding the caste

In India, employment in sanitation sector is generally perceived to be taken by those who come from castes that are traditionally known to be involved in scavenging such as Mehtar, Bhangi, Chuda and Lal Beg. However, residential caretakers in public toilets in the cities seem to defy this norm as upper caste individuals coming from Bramhin and Kshatriya families are found to be taking up the jobs due to unemployment and lack of opportunities in the city elsewhere for want of education and skills.

Arun (49) works as a sweeper at a toilet maintained by Janseva in Shivajinagar area of Pune. He’s reluctant to reveal his family name – Mishra – which gives away his Bramhin identity. “It’s been ten years since I’m working here. My relatives wouldn’t approve of my working as a sweeper in a toilet but ‘how would they know?’ Unko lagta hai ke pardes mein ja kar kama raha hai. (They only know that I’m earning a living by working in a foreign land). Personally, I don’t feel any inferiority in doing my task. This is public service,” said Arun.

Inside view of Raj Kumar Singh’s residence where he stays with mother, father and grandfather who is visiting the family.

23-year-old Raj Kumar Singh, who is in-charge of a toilet block run by Sulabh in Cinchwad, belongs to Rajput family coming from Vaishali, Bihar. The toilet block has a single 200-square feet room built on the second storey, above the lavatories, an arrangement more agreeable than having the residential quarters right next to the latrines. The residence can be accessed by climbing an iron staircase which stretches to the terrace through a circular opening in the roof. The room – which functions as bedroom as well kitchen, is shared by the family of three – Raj, his father who works as an electrician elsewhere and mother. Recently, his ailing grandfather too has moved in travelling from their hometown for better treatment.

Health – of body and mind

Prolonged exposure to human feces is known to cause a plethora of health issues. These include infectious diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, hepatitis and lung ailments. Santosh Singh of Sulabh, brushes aside the apprehension of residential caretakers or their family members contracting diseases, saying “I have not received any complaint regarding this. People who work in other industries such as construction, brick kilns or plastic product manufacturing where particulate exposure is more, are more susceptible to lung related illnesses. In fact, many times, people quit these jobs and come to us.”

While there has been no study to conclusively link or de-link work in public lavatories with infectious diseases, municipal health officers seem to believe that working with and staying close to human excreta is hazardous for health for the caretakers.

A Medical Officer with PMC, said, “These caretakers, especially women, are at high risk of being nfected with urinary tract infections. There is also an imminent possibility of them contracting bacterial and viral diseases. Also, in our country public toilets are favorite spot to spit, their occupants are susceptible to air-borne droplet infections such as tuberculosis.”
Keeping bodily health aside, having a ‘toilet’ for a home, has its own psychological implications, specially for kids, if not for adults, if the caretaker stays with the family.

Raju Sawant’s wife Sharada with son at the public toilet on Sinhagad Road.

“My sons often complain to me that their friends and classmates ridicule them for staying in a toilet,” said Raju Sawant’s wife Sharada who also blames working and staying at a toilet for her Tuberculosis.. “We have been staying here for last 15 years. All my kids have grown up here. Since we stay like this, miscreants consider us easy target. There are fights every hour of every day, they refuse to pay, abuse us and threaten to throw us out.”

Film Heritage and History

From old bills to new civil works, where National Film Heritage Mission funds went

September 15, 2018 Atikh Rashid 1 Comment

EXPRESS RTI: It aims at restoration of 1,050 feature films and 960 shorts; digitisation of 1,050 features and 1,200 shorts, construction of vaults of international standards, and training programmes.

ATIKH RASHID

When the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) was rolled out in November 2014 with the Union Cabinet approving Rs 597.41 crore, the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in Pune was selected as the implementing agency. The scheme’s objective is preservation and restoration of India’s celluloid film heritage, the work to be undertaken from 2014-15 to 2020-21. It aims at restoration of 1,050 feature films and 960 shorts; digitisation of 1,050 features and 1,200 shorts, construction of vaults of international standards, and training programmes.
Of the total allocation, Rs 291 crore is to be spent during the 12th Plan and Rs 306.41 crore during 13th. In the last three years, NFAI has received Rs 21.16 crore under NFHM. Half these funds went into settling an old liability that NFAI owed to a subsidiary of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, according to accounts accessed by The Indian Express under the Right to Information Act. The firm had been contracted for digitisation and restoration of films before NFHM was rolled out.

NFAI paid Reliance Media Works Limited Rs 10 crore in December 2014 to clear the “outstanding liability” after it received an approval for this from the I&B Ministry. In April 2015, Rs 2 lakh was additionally paid; this “cleared the liability totally”.

NFAI officials said that under the earlier project for digitisation and restoration, which was executed during the 11th Plan (2007-12), 566 films were digitised, including 329 that were restored. Bills for this work, submitted by Reliance Media Works between March 2011 and March 2012, and accessed by The Indian Express, were for Rs 38.71 crore.

“[The Rs 10.02 crore] was an outstanding amount, which could not be paid due to budget constraints during the 11th Five Year Plan,” said Prakash Magdum, NFAI director. “In fact, this was a kind of pilot project of digitisation in which some of the finest films from India were digitised, thereby making them accessible to cinema lovers. The objectives of NFHM were envisaged based on learnings from this project.”

NFAI spent Rs 3.80 crore on civil works, which included renovation and refurbishing of NFAI auditorium, installation of three new DCP projectors, modification of the director’s office, electrical works, renovation of toilets, construction of temporary sheds and parking area, thermal insulation of service blocks, and new workstations for staff. And Rs 3.25 crore was spent on purchase of new computers, storage equipment as well as on publicity including social media management.

Another Rs 3.77 crore was spent on payment to KPMG India, which won the contract for the consultancy firm for NFHM, and Prasad Labs that bagged the contract for condition assessment of the films with NFAI.

Besides, Rs 24 lakh and Rs 8 lakh were spent on buying film publicity material from hobbyists and domestic travel respectively. NFAI pays collectors of non-film material such as posters, stills, song booklets, press clippings at photos at various rates, ranging from Rs 100 per item belonging to contemporary times (since 1991) to Rs 1,000 per item belonging to the silent era.

On spending NFHM funds on civil works at NFAI, Makhdum said, “In order to fulfil objectives of NFHM, there is necessity for creating infrastructure environment which can be done in the government through major and minor works, which has changed the overall organisation setup and helped bringing it to modern, technology, equipped and state of art archive setup. Also enabling it to come closer to people at large.”

Film Heritage and History

I&B Ministry sets up expert panel to probe Film Archive issues

April 28, 2018 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

Apart from this, the I&B ministry had also formed a committee to review the work being done under the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) at the NFAI.

ATIKH RASHID

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has constituted a five-member expert committee comprising veteran filmmakers and film preservation experts to look into the condition of films as well as the storage vaults at the National Film Archive of India (NFAI). The committee will also suggest ways and means to preserve the films in a better manner. The committee comprises filmmakers Shaji N Karun, Ketan Mehta, Piyush Shah, former NFAI director K S Sasidharan and Shri Ponnaya, former chief of laboratory at Prasad Labs, Hyderabad.

Starting from September 2017, The Indian Express had published a series of news reports bringing to the fore glaring lacunae in the way celluloid films were being looked after at the Pune-based NFAI. Among these were the findings of an inventory carried out by a private firm for NFAI, which had claimed that as many as 51,500 film reels that were on accession records of the Archive were not physically present in its vaults.

Another news report had pointed out that thousands of film reels received from various sources by NFAI were lying in gunny bags. Yet another report stated that even after a major fire incident in 2003, the Archive lacked fire-fighting capacity, and nine important film prints were lying in a sealed film lab in Mumbai where NFAI had sent them for copying way back in 2007.

In March 2018, The Indian Express reported that due to NFAI’s failure to maintain the desired temperature and humidity levels within its vaults, a major chunk of film reels stored in the vaults were affected by deterioration — termed technically as vinegar syndrome. Earlier this week, this newspaper had published a report pointing out that three regional offices opened by NFAI in 1980s were non-functional for over a decade and no efforts were being taken to revive them.

The committee has been tasked with five specific responsibilities, namely to prepare a list of loss of films with archival value, suggest ways to salvage the National Film Heritage Mission, look into the condition of films and film related material at the Archive, suggest ways and means to restore them, and carry out a physical assessment of the condition of storage vaults.

An official with the I&B Ministry, who is privy to the development, said the Ministry decided to form a committee after going through a preliminary report submitted by Karun, following a surprise visit by him and Joint Secretary (Films) Ashok Kumar Parmar on April 4. Karun and Parmar had visited all film storage vaults at both the premises of NFAI in the city.

ALSO READ | ‘Vinegar syndrome’ ruining film treasure at National Film Archive, reveals data from film assessment project

“Two weeks ago, I had submitted a report to the Ministry based on my observations during the surprise check. I had suggested a few things that needed to be done for better storage of films at the Archive. Based on that, the five-member committee has been formed to probe the matter further,” Karun told The Indian Express. The filmmaker said the committee members will hold a meeting to decide the way forward. “The aim is to assess the damage that has been done to films stored at NFAI, find a way to avoid it in future and salvage the films that have been damaged,” said Karun.

Apart from this, the I&B ministry had also formed a committee to review the work being done under the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) at the NFAI.

The NFHM is a nearly Rs 600-crore project aimed at conserving, digitising and preserving the celluloid heritage of the country. Launched in 2014, it is being implemented by the NFAI.

The committee will look into financial as well as other matters pertaining to the NFHM. This committee comprises Parmar, Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor Ali R Rizvi, and Senior Economic Advisor Rohit Kumar Parmar.

Film Heritage and History

Express reports prompt I&B to conduct surprise check at NFAI

April 5, 2018 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

Joint Secretary (Films) at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ashok Kumar Parmar, and Karun, arrived unannounced on Wednesday morning and visited all 19 storage vaults on NFAI’s premises at Law College Road and Kothrud. The two will submit a report to the I&B Ministry about their inspection.

ATIKH RASHID

Taking cognisance of a series of reports published in The Indian Express on the state of affairs at the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), a senior official from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) and veteran filmmaker Shaji N Karun on Wednesday made a surprise inspection of the storage facilities at the institution.

“We have taken note of the issues that we found during our inspection and all this will be conveyed to the ministry,” Parmar told The Indian Express. Karun said that “being a film person”, I&B Minister Smriti Irani was herself concerned about the issues highlighted in the reports of The Indian Express, and that was the reason she had sent Parmar and him for a ‘preliminary inspection’.

“We will write a report and submit our observations to the ministry. This might be followed by a more detailed inquiry,” said Karun.

The Indian Express had reported on March 30 that NFAI often failed to maintain the desired temperature and humidity levels within its vaults, as a result of which several film reels had started showing signs of permanent damage. Data obtained by this newspaper pertaining to an ongoing assessment of film reels stored at NFAI showed that of the 58,670 reels checked till the end of November 2017, only 17,052 had remained unaffected by vinegar syndrome, a term used to describe the deterioration in acetate-base films. A total of 27,387 reels were in various stages of vinegarisation — from being mildly affected to being in a rapidly decomposing state — while 14,231 had reached a stage of irreversible damage.

Asked about its observations on the storage facilities at NFAI, Karun said the situation was “bad”. “In one of the vaults, we could not stand (due to the foul smell). We had to come out quickly,” he said.

Parmar said the ministry had also formed a committee to review the work being done under National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) at the NFAI. The NFHM is a nearly Rs 600-crore project aimed at conserving, digitising and preserving the celluloid heritage of the country. Launched in 2014, it is being implemented by the NFAI. “A three-member committee will review the work being done under NFHM. The committee will inspect the financial as well as physical matters. It’s likely to visit NFAI next week,” said Parmar. The committee comprises Parmar, Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor Ali R Rizvi, and Senior Economic Advisor Rohit Kumar Parmar. In September last year, The Indian Express had published a series of news reports bringing out the findings of an internal NFAI assessment, which had claimed that as many as 51,500 film reels that were on accession records of the Archive were not physically present in its vaults.

The reports had also pointed out that thousands of film reels at NFAI had been lying dumped in gunny bags, that even after a major fire incident in 2003, the archive lacked fire-fighting capacity, and that nine important film prints were lying in a sealed film lab in Mumbai where NFAI had sent them for copying way back in 2007.

Film Heritage and History

Number of films at NFAI never verified, projections to I&B fictitious: Former NFAI Director K S Sasidharan

April 2, 2018 Atikh Rashid Leave a comment

K S Sasidharan, who worked with NFAI for over two decades, serving at its director for five years before retiring in 2008, spoke to Atikh Rashid on these issues, and more.

ATIKH RASHID

IN September last year, The Indian Express published a series of reports on the state of affairs at the city-based National Film Archive of India (NFAI). Among other things, the articles mentioned the findings of a report that claimed as many as 51,500 film reels, which were on accession records of the Archive, were not present in its vaults. Last week, another report in the newspaper revealed that as per the ongoing ‘condition assessment project’ at the organisation, a large number of celluloid film reels stored at NFAI have reached critical level of decomposition due to failure to maintain ideal storage conditions inside its vaults.

K S Sasidharan, who worked with NFAI for over two decades, serving at its director for five years before retiring in 2008, spoke to Atikh Rashid on these issues, and more.

What would you say about the issues afflicting the NFAI as brought out in the reports in The Indian Express?

I have been reading them. See, NFAI has always had administrative and accountability issues. Can you imagine that even after 53 years of its existence, NFAI doesn’t even have an ‘organisational manual’ which lays down rules and procedures for smooth functioning. During my tenure as NFAI director, a draft for the manual was prepared. When it was placed before the Advisory Committee of NFAI for approval, a prominent member raised some silly objections that led to scuttling the project. P K Nair, who was on the committee, volunteered to prepare the manual but it never materialised.

In absence of such a document which lays down rules and procedures, officers can go on doing things the way they like. Any senior functionary will find it convenient not to have one because it brings restrictions on his authority to indulge in unlawful practices.

What about the more than 51,500 missing film reels? Officials say these could be the reels that were disposed of in 1995 and 2008. But records show only 28,400 were disposed then.

51,500 is too big a number to be entirely accounted for through disposals. When I was at NFAI (Pune headquarters), the disposal happened only once, in 1995. Although I was deputy director at that time, I was not involved in the whole process of disposal of films. The job was assigned to the then Film Preservation Officer by the Director.

Is it possible that these prints went out of NFAI and never returned?

I am not in a position to comment on this. Another explanation could be that the projection of number of films acquired by NFAI was not factual in the first place. This is entirely possible because the method to arrive at the total number of films with NFAI was flawed.

The numbers published in the Annual Report of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B), which were in turn provided by NFAI, were deemed to be factual numbers. Successive directors relied on those figures and kept updating them by adding the number of films acquired by them during their time. For example, if the annual report for previous year says NFAI had 12,000 films and I acquired 800 more during the current year, while sending the annual report for that year I would send 12,800 as total number of films held by the Archive without physically verifying it.

It also became a number game. So every director focuses on acquiring more films and letting the Ministry know it. Now, from what you have reported, it’s obvious that those projections in the annual reports were fictitious. It’s a human tendency, the darker side gets darker while the brighter side gets projected out of all proportions.

Why wasn’t an audit of inventory done even once in the last 53 years, including during your tenure?

In government, you go by precedence which was that you needed to only add fresh arrivals to the figure supplied to the ministry the previous year. This is where the mistake crept in. Also, conducting a stock verification was very difficult. There wasn’t enough staff. There was no established mechanism. All the factors contributed to the confusion.

We published pictures of about 14,900 film reels dumped in gunny bags in halls at NFAI Phase II premise.

I don’t know what films those are… the best thing would be to segregate the material worth preserving in the Archive and to discard the junk. There has to be a mechanism for disposal of films that have deteriorated irretrievably. I don’t think NFAI has such a mechanism even today. This is where the relevance of a manual comes in.

About 17,000 film reels packed in gunny bags and boxes were sent to a private warehouse 40 km away from NFAI’s campus in February-March 2016. Prakash Magdum, director of NFAI, said that this wasn’t unprecedented and such shifting to private facilities had happened during P K Nair’s time as well.

It must have happened, but it never happened during my tenure. Also, if you are saying the reels deteriorated then why would you spend public money on transport and storage at a private warehouse? It should have been avoided at any cost.

We also found out and reported that prints of nine important films from the black and white era are locked inside a lab (now dysfunctional) in Mumbai, which was sealed in 2010 over a legal dispute.

I can tell you that it’s squarely the responsibility of the Film Preservation Wing to monitor the movement of the films at the Archive, whether they are going out for copying or being sent out for screenings. It’s the bona-fide duty of the Film Preservation Officer to ensure that the material is back at the Archive within the stipulated time. The time window used to be maximum two to three weeks.

In case of the nine films mentioned, very important material and copyright issues are involved too. If the material is not back with the Archive within time, you should smell a rat and adopt legal measures to retrieve the archival property.

You were NFAI director when the unfortunate incident of fire in the nitrate vault took place in 2003. You had to face a lot of criticism for loss of cinematic heritage. How do you see it now?

There was a departmental inquiry and it was found that the fire had started because of rough handling of the air conditioning system installed there, leading to a spark that caused the fire. The nature of nitrate films is such that once it catches fire, you won’t be able to douse it even if you bring all the fire tenders in the world till the last bit of the film is burnt out.

More importantly, I will tell you how things work at NFAI. Construction and maintenance of storage facilities is done by the Civil Construction Wing (CCW) of All India Radio. These are the people who have no cinematic sensibilities. Although they are responsible for day-to-day upkeep of film vaults and other facilities, they are not given any orientation training in cinema and its heritage value in the context of history and culture, to sensitise them adequately. Also, NFAI has no control over them. It’s still a problem.