Village Rockstars, the movie India needs

So, finally after waiting more than three weeks, I arrived home for Durga Puja and watched Village Rockstars with my mother at a nearby multiplex. It was along time I watched a film with her in theatre, the last movie being Neerja.

It has already won hearts in India. It has garnered the most respected and coveted film award of India, the 65th National Film Awards conferred by the President of India. It has won the best feature film, best child artist, best location sound recordist and best editing categories.  It has been screened and won awards at various film festivals worldwide. It is India's Official Entry to the 91st Academy Awards popularly known as the Oscars.

For the first time, this movie has used a native dialect of Lower Assamese people. The dialect is from the region of Kamrup District (Rural & Metro). We fondly call it as Kamprupia thaas. I felt immense happiness that I got to see a movie with a dialect from the region I grew up in. It is the place of your stay, that influences your way of speaking.

Kamupia has been as one of the literary way of expressing in Assamese. Renowned Literary persons such as Mamoni Raisom Giswami and Ambikagiri Raichowdhury have used Kamprupi in their works.

It may be a bit confusing for people of other parts of Assam who do not use this dialect to communicate. Yet it has its charm that will completely make it enjoyable. Generally it is said that Assamese of Upper Assam is sweet (mitha) and that of Lower Assam is sharp (karha) just like every language has its various of of speaking. There has always been an endless discussion and debates on dialects from both Lower and Upper Assam. I have learnt a lot from such discussions. It has been very helpful. When one closely observes, both the Upper and Lower ways of speaking Assamese have their own contribution to the Assamese Society.

The written Assamese is also different form both Upper and Lower dialects. Yet we are united and people from both regions write in the same language. We are Assamese and Assam is our home. There is also Rabha Sangeet (Songs) used in the movie. It is a tribute to the Rabha community of Assam. There is also a village grandfather from Upper Assam.

This movie made me realise that I never had the childhood depicted in the film. The childhood of a village kid. I grew up as a city kid with all things artificial. The real childhood is in the grassroots, the villages.

Village Rockstars is in a thin-line between a feature film and a documentary. It is an art film. The beautifully shot villages scenes are mesmerising. The filmmaker keeps her lens still focusing on a scene for 5-10 seconds sometimes, without any dialogues. The image itself evokes it message without any words. 

My parents had that childhood, the countryside childhood. I used to hear from father how he was a village boy and did all sorts of plays with friends. He also did farming on paddy fields, on how he used bullocks and toil the fertile soil to grow our staple foods. My mother used to walk kilometres with her siblings to reach school. Although it was tiring but those were the way of life then. There was no alternatives. People made full use of limited resources. And this film shows exactly these ways of village life.

I never had the chance to climb a bettlenut (tamul) tree. For village kids, that is the most normal thing to do, climbing all shorts of trees. Dhunu, the protagonist, climbs bettle nut tree to pluck tamul. She even plucks tamul for neighbours to earn 10 to 20 rupees and hides them to make money to buy a real guitar.

The kids curve out musical instruments from Styrofoam in shape of guitar, drums, mike, keyboards and pretend them to be real. They form a rock band and sings along with their make-believe musical instruments. Dhunu is the guitarists. I was confused if she was the base guitarists or the lead guitarists. But that is not the point.

The point is the sheer desire of the kids to form a rock band even when they know it is not at all easy. They enquire about the price of guitar and other instruments. Dhunu begins accumulating money for a guitar.   

Dhunu tells her mother that, the village Upper Assam Grandfather has taught her that if  a person has a strong wish, then the wish will definitely be fulfilled. Being a kid, she does not get the complete meaning of it. She thinks that if she starts to think more about the guitar; it will come to her one day.Yet in some recess of her sub-consciousnesses, she knows money will needed for the guitar.

Her mom teaches her how to swim. She also takes her to paddy field to make her learn the trade of farming. Her father died in Assam floods, so her mother makes sure that her children are self reliant and well equipped in case of any calamities.

Village women folk do not like her playing with boys, that she should be only with girls. They punish her and this angers her mother against the womenfolk. She shouts that, raising voice that who are these people to interfere with her family. She is trying to make her kids self reliant, strong, adaptive and independent after the demise of her husband. The prevailing social stigmas are shown in this movie.   

Soon Dhunu reaches her stage of womanhood. A huge religious ceremony is held by the village women. They pray god for her well being. There is a food party (bhuj). All the villagers  contribute in the bhuj. They prepare the foods and celebrate. It shows how in-spite of some stigmas, village people are much more close knit than their counterparts in cities. 

The kids roam the open vastness of the green village.I never had that regular life. I remember that once when I was in my father's birthplace, He took me to the paddy field where my Aunt was plucking the harvests. That was my only experience. But that never became a regular thing. A city does not have such huge vast openness and paddy fields. 

There is music in the air of the village, chirping of birds, the hush of trees and paddy, the tinkling of cycle bells, the babbles of animals like cows and goats. People live in harmony with other animals. Dhunu has a pet goat (sagal) named Munu. She loves her very much and takes her to graze in the grasslands. They play together. Her mother tells her that they can purchase the guitar if they sell the sagal. But Dhunu disagrees to it.

One day the Munu disappears, the villagers roams the whole night to find the sagal including her mother but in vain. That night, Dhunu sleeps crying silently. The love of humans and animals is so delicately shown here.

                                                   

The film has portrayed the major issues Assam faces every year, Floods. Floods that destroys scores of villages, farmlands, homes, animals, make people homeless and whatnot. If you reckon, When this year Kerala floods occurred, there was a huge uproar. The uproar and support garnered Kerala worldwide support. It received lots of aid. I talked to my college ex-room partner who hails from Kerala. I discussed him why these huge support indifference between Kerala and Assam when both suffers the same fate.

The main factor is, Kerala is an advanced state. its people are almost 100 percent literate. Keralites are know worldwide for their contribution. Its location geographically is also favourable. But Assam is part of northeast India. It has her own contributions. Northeast India is still labelled as a remote corner of the country by Mainland India. This is so hurting.

Somehow, the mentality is still not broad. Northeast India is connected to rest of India through the Chicken's neck. That does not mean people here are lesser. This treatment is discouraging. I had experienced a grand ignorance of mainland people about their northeast knowledge which happened when I was a kid in the early 2000s. Let me keep that matter for another blog.

It is encouraging that Government has gradually started focusing on northeast. There is a realisation that Northeast is the connector to South-east Asian Countries. We are being recognised more and more by the Mainland India. More people know what is meant by northeast, more  people know that we are part of India too.

Recently Assam has garnered a lot of worldwide recognition in various fields ranging from sports to law to film. People are more interested and open in knowing about Northeast.

My eyes were sad at the horrors of flood depicted in the film. The movie was shot in real floods. The filmmaker, Rima Das braved all the difficulties in the flood to capture the horrors inflicted on people of floods. She has captured how the families get displaced. They took out everything form their thatched homes. They rescued their goats. The cattle were displaced. Their farmlands destroyed, their source of income and food gone. All that remained was endless stretch of water. 

Dhunu asks her mother, "Why do you grow paddy every year when you know the floods will destroy them anyway the next year?"

Mother replies, "Work is religion. There is no other choice. This is what needs to be done."

The lines are very powerful. Its delivers a lot of things unsaid. They try to pluck saplings drowned in the flooded fields. But all are dead. At least they can now use them to feed the animals. They are utilising every limited resource available.

People should see this movie to understand that Assam also suffered the same fate Kerala did. That too every year, Assam has to face the floods. Perhaps then, people will start raising support for Assam worldwide just like they did for Kerala. My buddy from Kerala understands this situation. And hopefully, gradually every section of people understands them. 

After the floods, Dhunu collects her saved money of some 85 rupees for the guitar. She asks her mother to close her eyes and puts the money on the palm her hand for day to day expenses. The mother gets emotional. She asked Dhunu from where she got the money. Dhunu informs that she earned by helping neighbours pluck their tamuls. The mother feels sentimental and in love tells her that she does not need to do that when she is here for her. She will feed her and her brother. 

It shows that every rupee counts for them. Yet, the mother's love for her children makes her tell them not to.. She will shelter them despite all the difficulties. A mother cannot see her children working when she is there to earn. That is her unconditional love. She will do the earnings and also prepare them for life lessons.

Finally, Mother buys a second hand guitar for Dhunu. She plays the real guitar with her band among the fields of her village. The rock band begins to take shape. 

Images: Facebook