TURA: Royal Television Academy award winner director, Tarun Bhartiya, whose documentaries have been produced by the BBC and aired on National Geographic attended a programme at NEHU Tura campus on Tuesday during which he presented four of his documentaries relating to Khasi and Garo Hills.
The event was organised by NEHU’s English Department and attended by university students and teachers who later participated in an interactive session with the film maker.
The three documentaries aired at the university auditorium offered the audience an insight into the nature of tribal culture questioning the idea of authenticity as well.
As director Bhartiya pointed out in the informal chat, the tribals are not to be treated as primordial creatures but are both subjects as well as objects of the enlightenment process which is called history.
The sight of a motley of men from Ri-Bhoi singing instant compositions to break the grind of threshing the paddy in forlorn fields, an elderly couple from Selbalgre Garo village singing of their days of youth and love to overcome their loneliness, and that of a Christian converted Garo craftsman singing songs of his earlier faith as a Songsarek to break the monotony of the mundane form the subject of the three films by Tarun Bhartiya screened at the NEHU campus in Tura.
The backdrop of the films would seem similar to Thomas Gray’s famous elegy and an obvious allusion to describe the films which had been named as ‘Brief Life of Insects (Ri-Bhoi)’, ‘Love Songs of Sotjak and Ringjeng’ … and ‘Songs of Sadolpara’ (Garo Hills) as poetry on co-celluloid would be a tempting cliche to one not conversant with the politics of filmmaking that Bhartiya indulges in.
Bhartiya concludes his documentary show with the film ‘La Mana’ or ‘Forbidden’ which attempts to be a bold take on the issues of matrilineal societies in Mechanical.
However, the narrative succeeds only in parts as the filmmaker seems keen not to appear intrusive and play the role of a chronicler. One only wishes that a film on the practice of matrilineal had more takers among women. Though the last question is the most apt given to one who chauffeurs and chaperons the persona (read film maker) around in the film itself.
