Kettle of Fish - a conversation about Sengadal with Nandhini for Time Out Mumbai

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/film/film_details.asp?code=442&source=5

Hi. The first, rather obvious, question: Why the fictional format? And what did fiction allow you to do with the narrative, locations and characters you were dealing with that may not have been possible on a documentary form?  

There is always a fiction in reality and a reality in fiction. I wanted to try something and not to be trapped in some syntax.Rather than cutting and pasting the reality and getting lost in revisionism, I thought, I will trial this and trust me I am aware of situations where I may fail.Our three dimensional world is not as real as we think and to deal reality and still handling fictional elements is not a treachery and Art allows it.

Sengadal is a participatory work. I just facilitated everything and I will not claim authorship for that. Everything in the film is the memory of a Dhanushkodi fishermen or of a fisherwoman or a thought of a child or a  confession of a refugee or an incident a social worker had shared or an experience of a filmmaker herself or an interview of one of those Rameshwaram Public. I just beaded them or scattered them to a shape to what my mind responded in the whole process. In a sense, the film was a departure of memories, thoughts and confessions.Again, reducing life to a story line for better control is a No - No for me. I maybe tried to unfold the film as a space of inter relations and inter-stories.

As an artiste, I was limited in many ways like no money, no professional production support, no professional actors, constant intimidation by vigilance forces, harsh weather conditions and an impossibly difficult location. There was something which is driving me and I guess that is the fisherfolk's amazing ability to live a midst so much of violence.

The script evolved from series of my workshops with Dhanushkodi fishermen and Mandapam refugees. And I colloborated with my writers Jerrold and Shobasakthi to evolve something discreet with all my raw materials like monologues, interviews and my scrap books. It became something but nothing worked as written in the paper. What I learnt is in this kind of cinema, Mise en Cinema is not what the authors try and evolve but it is the community who dictate it. And the authorship becomes three dimensional with the artistes who facilitate the the community, the community itself and the viewers who convert memory as an experience. Sengadal is an unfinished cinema and it is always as parts and not as a whole anytime in its existence.

   

Sengadal enfolds a film within a film. Why did you choose the self-reflexive approach?  

I am always a sucker of this idea of artiste being an organic part of her piece of work. I am criticised to be self indulgent for this very aspect of my belief. And I also believed that the whole journey is as much a failure to the filmmaker as it is to the community he or she deals with. I was constantly interrogated by all kinds of forces like Q branch, Police, CB CID, Navymen, Railway Police, Coastal Guards and I was doing nothing but trying to document fishermen's life with a camera. The documentary filmmakers in this country are always seen as some terrorists with a bomb in their waist belt. I think I identified my travails with the travails of fishermen community though not on the level playing fields and I tried to somehow knot it up. 

I am this Witness - Confidante - Listener who is a trophy failure r. And I guess, it is also a reflection of my constant shuttling across thresholds of insideness and outsideness.

   

I remember an artist in Bombay saying that art was, in a sense, dead after the Godhra riots. Is there a sense, after the Sri Lankan massacre that filmmakers need a new language, perhaps, a new way of approaching the issue?  

I really have to confess to you that this question has made me think of two many things and go blank or get lost. But one has to always live with hope. Otherwise how can one carry on any kind of struggle? 

Whenever I am left to deal with different kinds of experiences and different kinds of humiliations in terms of degrees, marginalized people are going through,  I am always left with the feeling that I am doing no justice in terms of depicting it in cinema. When I think I should do a 'No Story' but still have fictional elements against reality principle or when I try and document lives without representation or when I use repetition as a technique for re inscription, I only fail at the end of process.

Mutilation of people's dignity takes many forms and however It seems to me that I were heading nowhere in my struggle as an artiste if we as a human race cant really cross the partition lines like geographical, cultural, racial, gender, generational and other such to create new alliances in reality.One is taken away from one's own land and reduced to slavery , One remains homeless in one's own land, one is dispossessed of one's very means of survival and all our notions of survival seems to be notion of everyday. We rise up to everyday and if and only we fight, we might have new Jerusalem. 

Social and Political conflicts, I wonder are easier to consume than aesthetics. So,Creative space for me depends on what we do "creatively" and there is no meaning in creative space without being ''social''. I try and approach from the notion of in between ness. Though I am not sure, my language makes any sense to anybody. Poetry or Cinema, language is my first enemy and that is the one which demoralizes me but still gives strength to fight with. I think, that is also part of our feminist struggles has for decades.

Do fisherfolk and refugees play themselves? Did you mix up professionals and amateurs? I’d like to talk to you about the process used.  

Casting was an outcome of my many visits in a duration of one year and workshops. But there were situations when whom you choose in workshops, give them a character and even practice dialogues never turn up at the day of shoot. I had to randomly pick and again train them from the scratch on the locations. Almost everyone in the Unit including the boys who helped us in tea were made to act and towards the end we ran out of people to cast for supporting roles.It was a night mare thinking about the shocks you get everyday you venture into shooting. Managing with refugees was the most challenging task for me as whom you find the first day disappear the next day and reasons can be, they have found a better wage job, or they were just visiting and did not want to lose that day's wage but had to return to their original camps or they just got an agent and left to Australia or they are just absconding.I had to forget my lessons about continuity in Cinema and it was always a crisis management or a paranoia or madness coming to terms with reality. Fishermen would leave us if it is low seas and they see a catch worth than acting in this stupid cinema where they were made to walk some ten times as retakes.And the rural public who did supporting characters would refuse to wear the same shirt out of boredom or disgrace.

I can go on and you will have a book written at the end. 

‘My protagonists are like shamans’ - TEHELKA Interview

Published Version

PROTEST INC ‘My protagonists are like shamans’ Leena Manimekalai’s latest film, based on the ethnic war in Sri Lanka, has been refused a clearance by the CBFC. The documentary filmmaker tells Aastha Atray Banan why she will remain a non- conformist when it comes to her art.

http://tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=hu100911protagonists.asp

My Written Version

How did your background of being born in a little village to a household of men who leaned towards

communism affect your world view?

I am still a tropical Kurinji(Mountain and mountain surrounded landscape) woman with a pagan spirit and who loves mangoes, toddy, lake fish, cattle, summer springs and kabadi. I have also done few years of schooling at a Corporation School in that little mountain village Maharajapuram at the slopes of Western ghats when my Late Father Prof. Raghupathy who was indeed a first graduate in my family history went to university for M.Phil research. My nostalgia is equally romantic and inquisitive about the whole social and geographical setup. Yes, all my family men for three generations held state level, national level position in Communist Parties. interestingly family feud is mostly setup with our men's ideological beliefs. My grandfathers were with the Communist Party of India and my uncles are even now with Marxist and Maoist Parties. As children, we suffered our friendships with our cousins because of our head men's ideological leanings and activities. We have faced elections with our own uncles contesting against each other and our voluntary work in the election propaganda always shadowed on each other. My mother, grandmothers and aunts ran families and farms while all men are out for some party work. I always get inspired from them and wondered they are born leaders. They would have been Rosa Luxembergs and Clara Zetkins if they were allowed to be active politically, I supposed. Their bedtime stories about how they protected the men and families during ban on communist parties in India, against the frequent Police raids and arrests never made me sleep. I owe them all my initial feminist quests on equality and self respect.

Geographically, my village is divulged on caste dwellings and the wage worker Dalits live in ghettos and the oppressor land lordly caste live in better streets.Though my family had a left leaning and is always seen as traitors among the community, we still lived in the caste streets and owned lands and married within and I felt ashamed even in my youth to be born culturally in the oppressor caste family. I was angry by the practice of untouchability and beliefs on pollution and purity when my mobility with my peer group friends was limited because of that. My sense of compassion and equality which I acquired through my early exposure to Russian literature and Periyar E.V Ramasamy's little books, and pamphlets of Ambedkar's speeches from my Grand Dad and Dad's library was constantly battered by my question on why I have been given a caste tag by birth which puts me superior to some and inferior to some. I detested the tags and my whole idea of atheism was born out of my hatred to religion particularly Hindusim. I still cant forget my childhood rebellion of entering my village temples when am menstruating and then announcing to my family if i will die because of that, I rather die and befriending and staying in my dalit friends homes and refuse to go back home. I believe, my commitment to larger battle against social injustices in my youth was largely shaped up by my village which is still doomed by caste and class inequalities and women suppression.

You were raised by your mother a single mom? What did that teach you about Indian women?

My mom was married to my father who is her maternal uncle when she was fourteen and she got widowed when she was just thirty nine. It was terrible to witness my mother's trials through my growing up days. She used to say that I was born to her when she dint even know how a baby comes out of a woman's body. I have heard her cursing my grand parents for dooming her to be a woman by marriage when she was playing kittipuli(village game) as a naughty child with village boys and jumping compounds of village touring talkies to watch Bharathiraja's films stealthily bunking classes. But she was mother of mother to her sisters and brothers and their children and her children  and made us graduate and stand on our own.She wanted me to learn everything what she missed in her life. She will devotedly take me to bharathanatiyam classes, karnatic music classes, sanskrit classes, playground, regular school classes all though the day and she would abuse me if I fail to be good at any of these curriculum, i would be a failure like her. It was hard for me a child but I understood her anxiety as I grew up. Being her mirror image of what she could not be was such a task to me but I guess i acquired my fighting ability from her and her bringing up. I did ask her to re marry when we lost our father but she refused to that and said she would be our father too from then on. All my existence today is because of her and her passion for life.

You also worked as a relief worker after the tsunami hit india. What were some of your realizations

during that period?

I would correct that I was not a relief worker but managed to so some work around that.Catastrophes will lead one to become something else and yes it did affect me and made me a spiritual being. As an offspring of Self Justice movement, I always thought everything can be understood and very well within explanations.But my experience with natural disaster did make me feel there can be something which cant be understood. My fear of loss and suffering which I had when I lost my father extended to whole humanity and lives.

I also felt, my cameras and pens lose their power before certain situations and I should use my hands to help rather. I also realized that I am not that brave and courageous, which I think am and I really have to grow up to handle larger than life situations and there are situations which can shake you up and leave in despair.

I did gather myself and did art therapy for children at the tsunami hit coastal belts and documented the workshops which really made the children deal with their fear,gain their confidence and go back to schools. My film on those workshops was screened across 58 coastal villages and helped relief workers involved in rehabilitation..

The censor board wanted some of your movies to have massive cuts. But you went ahead and released films independently, without those cuts. What is your take on censorship and why do you think absolute freedom of expression is needed?

Censor Board is a shame to our 'democracy'. Even after legally been transformed to a Certification Board in 80's it is impossible for the board to remove the scissors from their hands and spirits. Institutionally controlling a content and deciding what their "subjects" should see or think or hear or act is a colonial hangup and a fascist attitude.Our sixty years of democracy has not still done with Queen Victoria and our Babus still want to clean her graves with their loyalty. I cant take this humiliations at any cost as a free thinking artiste. In a way for me, practicing art is a form of detesting censorship of my 'being' by agencies like family, religion, caste, culture and identities, market and state. I have gone to people directly with my films and there was no single incident creating a law and order situation as the CBFC had always feared. Infact the films demanded intervention of the concerned.It was only with my direct dialogues with my films with the community, my social understanding evolved and I leant and unlearnt a lot. This whole participatory process and the dialoge involved has only strengthened me and I cant allow agencies like CBFC to limit me the possibilities of reaching films across.

Anybody who believes in free thinking will subscribe to absolute freedom of expression. And with my little experience, people are wiser enough to chose, reject, appreciate  and criticise what they want and if State thinks it has a role in controlling it, we need to remind it that it cannot and should not.

Your movie Goddess dealt with different dalit women taking on typical male roles in society – of gravedigger, fisherman, and in turn questioning them? Do you think you do that every day in your life – as a filmmaker who dares to question authority?

Lakshmi amma(Mourner and beef seller), Sethurakamma(fisherwomen) and krishna veni amma(grave digger) are shamans to me and I learnt from them how not to complain and fight our ways and live our choices so passionately. To continue to do what I believe in is so hard at our times and the extraordinary lust these women have for their lives made me feel so good about my own trials and challenges. I get very demoralised and disillussioned sometimes when I feel marginalised and socailly outcaste in my own terms and life, the lives I come across with my own films give me hope and courage. I think, I question and I live and I owe this quality of mine to people like these three goddesses.

You have said that an artist’s responsibility is to make society reflect on its own actions or issues.

But don’t you think sometimes artists may use that argument to incite. Or that such noble plans may backfire and incite sensitive parties

Yes, i agree, everything has its own repercussions.But is it not a natural justice that way? Everyone has a right to practice what they believe in and express themselves and artist with his or her own capability will deal it in their own terms.We we are born in a chronic unequal society and everything is so complex out here. I dont know about noble plans but even for simple plans, trial and error is the only way out for anyone to be different and still survive.

You talk about the fishermen’s ability to survive through violence and getting inspired by that. What did that teach you about life and how have you tried to bring that across in your movie. What are some of the main points you want to raise through Sengadal?

Basically fisher community are very compassionate. They are so humane to levels that they help refugees or rebels or any x , y or z who come to them and thus they invite problems every now and then with the State authorities. It was not difficult for them to love me like one among them. I was one listening ear to all of them but in the process, I felt powerless and helpless when I came across their horror stricken lives.I felt like one awful rat living so sophisticated in the plains. But their ability to live and the courage to set off their boats everyday though there is a 'Do or Die' situation overwhelmed me.I lived with them, and every fisher family at Dhanushkodi is my extended family. Their interviews, personal confessions and memories dug a deep hole in my heart and got etched in my sub conscious.I had no other go than sharing my experience somehow with the rest of the world. And that is how Sengadal the Dead Sea happened.

Almost every household in Dhanushkodi, the border coast has a story of their men shot randomly by the Sri Lankan Navy in the sliver of water between India and Sri Lanka. Fishermen fishing in fear in ignorance of friendly and enemy waters get dumped as rebels, spies and smugglers and unceremoniously beaten to death or shot or maimed.One can see a widow or orphaned children or parents who have lost their son or siblings who have lost their brother in every other family. Unnoticed, the Palk Strait has become the scene of inhuman torture, humiliation and savage murder over the past 30 years since the ethnic crisis had become severe in Srilanka. And in the past six months, the violence has been accelerating — hundreds of  men have been killed. Nearly 600 have lost their lives till now, more than thousands are injured and  have gone missing. And everyday, these figures are raising. And this is not even war.

There were instances where fishermen have been stripped off their clothes and their legs have been heated up with hot rods.They have  been beaten  up using plastic pipes and clubs and they have scars to show us.Horrible physical abuses like making them to sit on ice and looting their fishes have taken place as well.Besides there has been numerous situations where they have been taken into custody and tortured,physically and verbally abused.Tearing their nets and damaging their boats have often been done by the navy. Fishermen in general are socially oppressed and economically downtrodden people and hence these acts are nothing less than strangulating them.Questions do raise in one’s mind about the racist nature of these attacks.

To fishermen, maritime boundaries are man made creations.  Throughout centuries, they have been fishing in all areas, where there is fish.  It is a universal phenomenon.   The Sri Lankan fishermen enter Indian and Maldivian waters. Indian fishermen enter Pakistani waters and Bangladeshis enter Myanmar and the Japanese and Taiwanese trawlers roam around the whole of Asian waters.  The restrictions imposed by the States on cross border movements of the fisher folk have led to loss of human lives and destruction of fishing crafts.                

States are interested in borders, boundaries, bilateral relations and Fishermen are interested in their means of livelihood and thus the issue is conflict of interests and loss and suffering of the powerless.

Dead Sea, for sure will voice their concerns expose how abysmally small their lives are and how every other institutions of Power oppress them. All they ask is their basic rights to live and it is not too much at all. As a fellow being, let us all intervene in our own way to keep the discourse alive until there is some collective action.

You have alleged that the Indian government helped in the elam tamil genocide. How do you explain that?

India is been always a big brother to its neighboring countries. India is the one that nurtured Tamil weapon movements in Srilanka and also made them lose the war and their cause at the end of three gruesome decades of loss and suffering. Srilankan War Crimes are now exposed in the international media and there is an outcry for a trial on the excesses committed by the government in the International Court of Justice and Law. Recent UN reports clearly states that the SL government has conducted genocide. As Indians we should be ashamed of our governments who given alms, arms and every other support to Rajapakshe and be a kingpin to perform this genocide. Rajapakshe has himself given an open statement that he had conducted India's war.

Srilankan Tamils are the community in their fight for their right to self determination who have lost thousands of lives so brutally to the hands of State and Revolution. Srilankan Tamils had to constantly negotiate with the dominant Sinhala State of Srilanka and the rigid control of community exercised by Tamil militant organization Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Ealam (Ealam is the imagined Tamil State fought for by the militants)whose extremist and militarist stances have created a culture of fear and anxiety among the Tamil Polity. This has led to migration of hundreds and thousands of people fleeing across the coasts as refugees to India and other countries. 

The misery spells over the Indian shores and the fishermen in the coastal borders suffer their very right to profess their traditional fishing rights. They speak the same language as the ethnic minorities in Srilanka and the racist Srilankan Navy kill them in the name of "Border Crossing".

It is the Nations and States and Constitutions and Boundaries and Border Forces which are violating fisher community's very basic right to live. What both Indian and Srilankan States do to fishermen is State Terrorism. Nearly 600 have have lost their lives till now, and more than thousands are injured and have gone missing leaving their family in the lurch. Who is responsible for that? Is it the racist Srilankan Governments? or the impotent Indian and Tamilnadu governments? Sengadal is the vent for the fishermen's anger and I join them hands.

Sengadal Screening / Vikalp@Prithvi / Mumbai / Montages

http://www.facebook.com/SengadaltheDeadsea

Mumbai Mirror Feature

MID DAY Feature

Conversation with Karthikeya Ramanathan for Mid Day (Publication Link above)

Your film portrays real stories of victims from either side of the Palk Strait. How did you come up with the story?

     

India is been always a big brother to its neighboring countries. India is the one that nurtured Tamil weapon movements in Srilanka and also made them lose the war and their cause at the end of three gruesome decades of loss and suffering. Srilankan War Crimes are now exposed in the international media and there is an outcry for a trial on the excesses committed by the government in the International Court of Justice and Law. Recent UN reports clearly states that the SL government has conducted genocide. As an Indian, I am ashamed because my government has supported the war and has been a kingpin. 

Srilankan Tamils are the community in their fight for their right to self determination who have lost thousands of lives so brutally to the hands of State and Revolution. Srilankan Tamils had to constantly negotiate with the dominant Sinhala State of Srilanka and the rigid control of community exercised by Tamil militant organization Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Ealam (Ealam is the imagined Tamil State fought for by the militants)whose extremist and militarist stances have created a culture of fear and anxiety among the Tamil Polity. This has led to migration of hundreds and thousands of people fleeing across the coasts as refugees to India and other countries. 

The misery spells over the Indian shores and the fishermen in the coastal borders suffer their very right to profess their traditional fishing rights. They speak the same language as the ethnic minorities in Srilanka and the racist Srilankan Navy kill them in the name of "Border Crossing".

As one of the voices of Dissent against Indian government aiding the Srilankan government's genocide, being a silent witness was slowly making me numb. It is still awfully painful to helplessly watch what is going on to my fraternity in Srilanka. I wanted to cry aloud and that is Sengadal the Dead Sea.

I initially went to Dhanushkodi to know more about Rose Mary (the war widow, who lost her husband in Srilankan Navy Shooting) and her services to refugees’ community. Through her I came to know about the fishermen community at large and their abysmal lives. Their plights and their ability to live expanded me emotionally. I was inspired by the charecters like Kangesu, Munusamy, Aandy, Kaaliyamma, Muthuraasu and many other fisherfolk who shared their food and shelter along with their life stories. Those stories have jolted me and made my spirit linger in Dhanuskodi's shores and sands.I was like a wandering crow sometimes, a mourning dog sometimes, a digging turtle sometimes and I was smelling fish and salt during those days. 

Then I decided to tell this experience of mine to the world. I still remember that night when stars were hanging like ripe fruits of my ancestors twinkling to my wishes.

Your film ran in to censor board problems earlier this year, and you have gone on record to say how you felt it is "mutilating your organs". What was going through you when the board was creating problems and how do you feel, now that it has been cleared?

Dead Sea was banned by Central Board of Film Certification for its political content and the way the film criticizes Indian and Srilankan governments. I fought the case with the Appellate Tribunal authorities and the grievances court subsequently quashed the order and guide lined for re examination. And now, the film is cleared with an Adult Certification without any cuts and I think this is the victorious moment for artists who believe in freedom of expression. How difficult is to prove the artist can challenge an establishment in this so called democracy and how fat a lie is this freedom.

I can never compromise in my artistic freedom and I strongly believe that no STATE has any business in dictating ART. Truth can be un comfortable but it is our responsibility to deal with it and not turning away from it. Dead Sea blatantly reveals how this Nations, Borders, Boundaries are all against the humanity and test the very basic right to live in this world. Dead Sea speaks about the constant negotiation of ordinary lives in between gun of revolution and gun of state.

 

Does your film take a political stand?

Dead Sea is a documentation of  what I found as Truth. I am not a messiah and I do not believe in giving any message. I come across something which disturbs me and feels me that this experience has to be shared to the fellow human beings.I witness, become a witness but at least proactively express when I am not able to change lives and situations.  Fortunately I write and am learning cinema and when I am convinced that I can express through that medium, I try and do that.

We wage wars and lose wars but we continue to welcome tomorrows with another war. When we acknowledge it, it is Art and when we do not acknowledge it, it is an untold, unrecognised history of ordinary lives. We resist, revolt, die or live partly and I see my art as an extension of those. I cannot be part of Power but can be a voice of dissent and Dead sea is such a voice if dissent.

 

What were the challenges you faced while shooting the movie? Could you tell me a little about the role of the refugees in the movie?

 

It was a difficult mission to make a film because Dhanushkodi is a place under constant surveillance by the Coast Guard, the Indian Navy, CB-CID, Q Branch and the Intelligence Bureau as the Sri Lanka is 18 kms away. It’s a very different life out there — no bathrooms, no electricity, no mobile signals. Even the dogs there are different because they feed on corpses. To overcome all these barriers, natural and man-made, to see Sengadal honestly becoming a portrayal of the unrecognised and constantly insecure community, was quite a task.

As an artiste, I was limited in many ways like no money, no professional production support, no professional actors, constant intimidation by vigilance forces, harsh weather conditions and an impossibly difficult location. There was something which is driving me and I guess that is the fisherfolk's amazing ability to live a midst so much of violence.

Handling the refugee community was the toughest amongst all I had faced so far regarding this film. Shooting was manytimes at stake because they dont turn up or they would have taken up a better daily wage job than this stupid shooting where they are asked to repeat the same action for some ten times for a good shot or they were suddenly instructed no to go outside as some Deputy Chief Minister is visiting the city or they have a census or they got a agent clearance to go to australia and secretly had left the country or they moved out to an other camp for some unspecified reasons etc etc... We go there everyday to the camp, wait for them to come out after they get through the check points and collect them one by one in the van and still you will only have some 8 characters out of 13 characters whom you had auditioned or used in the scene. They will come up with a new child instead of the child who had acted in a scene half finished and simply say, that the child cannot come anymore and refuse to tell us reasons. Good way to learn making cinema without something called conitunity. Leave action or dialogue continuity, you will end up managing character discontinuity. But tell me Karthick, still we have better life than them and it is ok to put up with all the night mares they give you. Isnt it?

 This is your first full length feature production. How did it feel to do such a long production?

To be honest, Its been an exile since two and a half years. And I really want to move on. But things like Ms. Navi Pillai who is the Secretary General of UN Human Rights Commission and Justice in International Court of Justice watching Sengadal in my premeire at Durban happen, it really feels like, it is worthwhile. She is the one of the powerful woman in the UN and will be heading investigation of War Crimes committed by Srilankan Government. Fishermen issue never went to her notice so far and Sengadal the Dead Sea solved the purpose. I spent almost half a day with her on a Sunday and the conversation was so useful. She considers the film as an important witness and promised to intervene and take necessary action regarding Indian fishermen issue.I urged her to investigate killing of fishermen in the Indian Border Coasts along with the genocide of Srilankan mainland Tamils.

I will stand with my people whatsoever in their fight for Justice. The film is a people participatory Cinema I owe my authorship to them. The fact that Dead Sea, for sure will voice the people's concerns and expose how abysmally small their lives are and how every other institutions of Power oppress them is the hope I hold on to. All the fishermen ask is their basic rights to live and it is not too much at all. As a fellow being, let us all intervene in our own way to keep the discourse alive until there is some collective action.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________




From: Chandni Parekh 
Date: 31 August 2011 22:58
Subject: Vikalp@Prithvi Screening of 'Sengadal'
To: leena manimekalai
Cc: anand patwardhan , Pravin Subramanian


Hi Leena,

Around 70 people came in spite of the heavy rains. It was almost a full house.

While not many spoke or asked questions after the screening, a few people told me they were very moved.

Pravin mailed me: "Sengadal created a lump in my throat that refused to go until tobacco dulled the senses slightly :("

He also sent us this note about the screening:
                                          

"Sengadal", an adjective in Tamizh, an attribute to the sea. Literally, it means "Red Sea" but for reasons more than appropriate film-maker Leena Manimekalai termed it as the "Dead Sea".

This bloody, deathly attribute is given to the stretch of Indian Ocean that straddles the narrow divide between Sri Lanka and India. Whose blood is it that colours the ocean red? Well, it could be generally labelled as Tamizh blood, irrespective of nationality.

"Two mother-tongues, one nation. One mother-tongue, two nations..." the ominous sounding statement appears just as the film opens to the sight of a trussed up and bound prisoner who's kicked in the head repeatedly as he's kneeling on the ground helplessly, only to be executed by a shot to the back of his head. The bone of contention that this film deals is the half century old genocide of Tamizh speaking Ceylonese on the island of Sri Lanka. And caught in the cross fire are the Tamizh speaking natives of India, who for no fault of their own get massacred by the Sri Lankan navy.

A poor fisherman although aware but not remotely concerned with international politics, ventures out into the sea beyond Indian territorial waters only in search of fish. And then, the Lankan navy spots him, arrests him, abuses him, tortures and if the fisherman's lucky, kills him and throws his body into the ocean. Woe betide the fisherman who's arrested and taken to Lankan shores to be kept alive only to be killed, one day at a time...

The conflict between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamizh Eelam ended (atleast politically speaking) in September 2009 with a major gun battle winning the Tamizh stronghold of Jaffna. How many Eelam fighters were killed, and how many were innocent Tamizh civilians butchered as a part of the pogrom is anyone's guess. Satellite images show a good number of unmarked graves all over the place whilst the Lankan army claims none to be true.

Silence is a major role player all throughout the film. When a dead body who was once a living, joyous person is washed into the shore, a momentary burst of wailing and violence temporarily seem to take control. But with the passage of time, silence prevails yet again. The suffering and sadness are not in the moments of wailing as much as they are in the moments of emptiness and silence.

Soori, a wild and free spirited Sri Lankan Tamizh lives or atleast tries to lead a life that excludes his immediate surroundings, seeking comfort in the voice of his radio and a few school children who're his playmates. He came ashore to Dhanushkodi just like many other of his people.

Killinochi, Jaffna, Mullaiteevu and countless other places kissingly close to the Indian shores offer or atleast seem to offer an escape from the everyday violence and persecution meted out by the Sri Lankan armed forces. For a princely amount ranging from 7,000 to 10,000 Indian rupees; the Tamizh natives try their level best to escape to India. "We just wish to live in peace and harmony. Back home, we have nowhere to go but die. If we wanted to die, we'dve stayed back..." the empty voice of a freshly arrived Sri Lankan echoes in the police station at Rameswaram.

But India's not their solution, and India too has its share of torture and pain in store for these people. The police officers and Navy are far from friendly with the refugees who come ashore. Indeed, many of the officers come scouting in the night to hunt for young girls they could ravage. Food and clothing in shortfall, contraceptives is the last thing the refugees would have on their person! And so, many young girls are forced to bear the unwanted fruits of their labour.

Rosemary, a Catholic missionary, tries her best to alleviate the situation of the people, providing succour and welfare under the umbrella of religion and spirituality. But what good can spirituality do when hunger paws and claws an empty stomach?

"We've found human remains in the bellies of fish many a times when we gut them" a fisherman from Dhanushkodi adds. Is the international community not aware of this? Why is India silent? Is India afraid of the Sri Lankan armed forces? Or is it just that it has too many problems of its own to care about a few hundred fisherfolk getting slaughtered in the name of terrorism?

Apathy and indifference have made the administrative forces in India stone cold, and seeing no response to their atrocities, the Sri Lankans are only bolstered to kill more and more Tamizh civilians. Who cares whether they're Indian or Lankan? Kill them as long as they're Tamizh!

The local politicians of Tamil Nadu, including the former Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi, offered little more than empty promises and television sets to people who had no electric supply to talk of! How about hot soup and bread for the refugees coming in ashore? How about weapons for the Indian fishermen who undertake the dangerous and sometimes fatal journey into the ocean only to be confronted by Sri Lankan forces?

Indeed, Leena portrays and captures the fishermen's demands for arms to fight off (read defend themselves) the Lankan navy. Uptil date (the film was documented in 2009), 422 Indian fishermen have been officially recorded dead, killed by the Lankan navy. Countless others languish in prisons in the island, arrested in the name of participating with the LTTE.

Given these tough circumstances, an Indian fisherman's plight is shown as he's caught in a dilemma whether or not to ferry a family to Indian shores as they wait indefinitely on a sandy islet. When his conscience gets the better of him and he does return to bring them ashore, there's not a sign of the people. Only a steel jar lies on the sand and some footprints that lead nowhere are to be seen. Perhaps the sea swallowed them whole.

In the end, even the free spirited Soori, vanishes someplace nowhere, leaving behind his playmates and his beloved radio. Perhaps he finally went to France where his brother was, perhaps he went to Sri Lanka...

After the film screening, the silence seemed to have come out from the film and settled into the hearts of the viewers for none were ready to talk or say anything in favour or against anyone or anything!

A member spoke about the infamous "Api Wenuwen Api" movement in Sri Lanka. The phrase literally means "Us for Us", a plea to the Lankan Sinhalese to contribute money as charity to support the war movement, the persecution of the Tamizh on the island, and not a single hand, he repeated, not a single hand was seen missing the wrist band that was given to the donors for the cause. The Lankan civilians had no idea of the kind of massacre their forces were perpetrating, or were hand in glove with them all...

Soldiers patrolling the city with fingers on the semi-automatic machine gun's trigger, curfew like environment after 06:00pm and heavily policed and censored media which was awash with praise for the Lankan forces and also spoke deeply about Mahinda Rajapakkasa's committment toward bringing the until then isolated Tamizh clan into the mainstream Sri Lankan polity and government welfare. Heh, a good lot of eyewash!

Another member from the audience only silently nodded in approval to what was said, but for the first time, the audience walked out silently instead of voicing differences and arguments. Perhaps the silence of the Sengadal was weighing all of us down...

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Feel free to respond to his note on http://on.fb.me/oOBcI3 if you'd like to. I've also copied him on this mail.

Thanks and all the best with your other screenings.

- Chandni