Film on Uttarakhand ‘ghost village’ makes it to MAMI Mumbai festival

Film on Uttarakhand ‘ghost village’ makes it to MAMI Mumbai festival
Srishti Lakhera’s Garhwali film, Ek Tha Gaon, the story of her ancestral village with only five locals left, will compete with a number of the simplest Indian films of 2020 within the prestigious ‘India Gold’ category, at 22nd MAMI Mumbai festival .

Ek Tha Gaon has made it to the distinguished India Gold competition category of the 22nd MAMI Mumbai festival .
The camera paints vignettes of white mist against dark walls, black soot on kettles as fires burn and die, with indoors as barren and cold because the outside. Derelict houses entwined in overgrown foliage, cracked walls, broken wooden doors, a stray cat about, clothes strewn across a floor – speak of habitation once. About 800 years ago, a village settled by one quite migration – by 50 families comprising kings from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal fleeing invasion and threat to life, and therefore the Brahmins and Kshatriyas they brought along – is today empty due to another quite palayan. If people make a village, what remains of it once they leave?

Srishti Lakhera’s Ek Tha Gaon (Once Upon A Village) is that the story of Semla, one of 1,053 (the film tells) ‘ghost villages’ in Uttarakhand. The Garhwali film made it to the distinguished India Gold competition category of the 22nd MAMI Mumbai festival . Others during this category include Arun Karthick’s hair-raising Tamil film Nasir on religious bigotry uprooting a standard life, Ivan Ayr’s Meel Patthar (Milestone), Farida Pacha’s watch Me, and Prithvi Konanur’s Pinki Elli? (Where is Pinki?). While COVID-19 has pushed the festival to next year, MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Image) announced the official selection earlier this month. Before this, the Visions du Reel Festival documentary festival in Switzerland put Lakhera’s film in their media library. The film comes after another similar film, Nirmal Chander’s Moti Bagh, on his farmer uncle in Pauri Garhwal, won at IDSFFK (International Documentary and Short festival of Kerala) and was one among India’s entries to the Oscars last year.

srishti lakhera directorDirector Srishti Lakhera’s Ek Tha Gaon is that the story of Semla, Uttarakhand.
In 2019, Lakhera co-directed Ishq, Dosti and every one That, a brief film on queer friendship and love, with Bhamati Sivapalan and non-profit Nazariya, but Ek Tha Gaon is her first full-length film. Part-observatory, part-expository, it’s poetic and private . For Lakhera, 34, who grew up in Rishikesh and graduated from Delhi, Semla is her father’s ancestral village, one she would visit to satisfy grandparents and relatives during holidays. Her father, like many others, migrated. He pursued medical studies and a government job. Her mother’s side, from Pauri Garhwal, had almost entirely migrated to Dehradun way back . “When I came here, our house was in ruins, amid overgrown bushes and grass. I saw the village road come up, but no conveyance . there have been seven locals, now just five remain, minus a few who’ve returned due to lockdown/joblessness,” she says during a phone conversation from Semla, where she and her parents are spending their days within the lockdown. Lakhera says that reverse migration is temporary. “Two men returned from South Africa and Taiwan, respectively, where they earned around Rs 50,000 per month performing at hotels, that’s not the type of cash you’d make here,” she adds.

The film’s two women – 80-year-old Leela Devi and 19-year-old Golu – feel stuck, but, eventually, leave. Their own lives also tell the story of the village’s lost past, present limbo, and hazy future. “In 2014, i used to be getting to my range in Semla, not really to form a movie , but seeing the older woman set about her days, I saw a movie there. Though she recalled my grandparents and fogeys , it took me quite two years to create a connection. Then, I met Golu, this youth who aspires for employment and a far better life,” says Lakhera. within the film, one sees Golu mostly staring into nothingness, the speed with which she flips TV channels, iterates her restlessness and therefore the constant sense of feeling “unlucky”.

ek tha gaonLeela Devi, 80, speaks of a time when “night never descended on the farms, brimming with people.”
Leela speaks of a time when “night never descended on the farms, brimming with people.” She once grew ragi, jhangora, dal, 300 sorts of rajma (the vertical fields are rainfed, irrigation isn’t possible despite close proximity to India’s highest dam, Tehri), but now she uproots weeds and is spurned even by leopards. On trembling legs, one broken, she has got to walk, to fetch water, and grocery 1 km away in Nyuli village, which features a doctor-less nursing unit. But the spunky Leela – who “refuses to require directions, or wear lapel mics” – equips herself with ready repartee, to navigate life amid dark thoughts and “ghost-like humans.” Lakhera ensures the gaze and engagement aren’t distant. She forgoes handheld camera for a warm, intimate and intuitive entry into the private space and worlds of the characters, Sivapalan’s succinct edits give the film a felicitous medium pace.

Another character, Dinesh Bhai, neither features a livelihood nor access to abandoned lands to till, which the out-migrated landowners would rather let it waste than give to a Dalit. “People of our caste are landless,” he says within the film. “If given alittle plot, I’d have grown onion, potatoes, garlic, etc. Raja ke time hum logon ko dabake rakhte thhe, wohi abhi tak chal raha hai (We were oppressed under the kings, and remain so now).” Dalits, Lakhera says, are within the state much before the upper-caste people, and are much more indigenous to the land. The locals are hooked in to the ration system and engaged in MGNREGA work – maintaining pagdandi (walking trails), cutting grass/overgrown foliage. “Do your job today, get money later. that sort of delay is tough for the people,” adds Lakhera. Since April, the wages of all-India MNREGA workers, consistent with the MNREGA website, of around Rs 2,974 crore and counting, are yet to be cleared.

The film, however, isn’t populated with figures. For Lakhera, cinema is “emotion,” a glimmer of hope amid the gloom and despair. The ending shows Leela and Golu, sitting on an equivalent parapet where the octogenarian had spent many an day in wistful sleep, happily sharing their town stories. Leela Devi, who now lives together with her daughter in Dehradun, is visiting the house she once refused to go away , and Golu, who now stays with relatives in Rishikesh, training to be a yoga teacher, is visiting her parents, who are among the five villagers remaining in Semla.

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