Volume 24 - Issue 04 :: Feb. 24-Mar.

09, 2007
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU

LIFE & PEOPLE

A day at the races

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY P. SAINATH

At the carnival at Delanwadi, Vidarbha, bullock cart races are the

centrepiece.

The race is on. Spectators are everywhere. Some of them cross the tracks
unmindful of the onrushing bulls. The cart racer does not slow down a whit.

"HA!" he said. "Taking photos, huh? Well, take your photos and give them to Bittu
Sehgal in Mumbai." Sehgal is the editor of Sanctuary Asia magazine. The drunk had
concluded I was taking pictures of cruelty to animals. How this conversation could be
going on in Chandrapur, Vidarbha, remains a mystery. Maybe he had worked in
Mumbai at some point. Maybe a team from Sanctuary had worked in this forested
region in recent times. The man was too incoherent to explain. A little later, he
nearly got both of us crippled. After which I did not care to ask him any more
questions.

The Shankarpat or carnival at Delanwadi is in full swing. Its centrepiece, of course, is

the bullock cart race. Should these be called races or speed trials? The racers do not
all take the field at the same time. There is not enough width for that. You cannot
have more than two carts making the one-kilometre dash at one go. That is because
there are two `tracks' shaped out in the field by use over decades. Mostly, it is one
cart, two bullocks, one driver at one time.

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 A superb rider for a crucial race. Lunging forward to avert a drunk meant
this picture was taken within an inch of disaster.

It is different from other racing scenes as the spectators are everywhere, some of
them crossing the rutted tracks with their backs to onrushing bullocks in the middle
of a race. But there are no mishaps. The audience yells its lungs out to alert a
miscreant who leaps out of the way like a startled stuntman. The cart racer does not
slow down a whit. Groups of youth hover dangerously close to the tracks, ostensibly
to cheer their heroes on. The less boisterous sections maintain a safe distance, some
perched on top of regular carts piled high with straw. That is the dress circle and
balcony. Still others potter through the carnival buying goods but break off when the
roar of a race beckons them.

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 A rider at full stretch.

These are not your everyday bullock carts. As bullock carts go, these are pretty
snazzy racers - much smaller, sleeker, relatively lightweight and capable of surprising
speed. The racers are all experienced farmers of varying sizes and ages. One is
surely close to 60 years old, if not more. But age is no bar. The bar is on racing itself.
So there are no official `prizes' though some say token `gifts' are handed out. The
racers are in it for the prestige.

They are getting ready as we enter the field. Checking their carts, tending their
animals. Some cattle are decked out in finery, but that is for other functions. The
racing bullocks are a no-frills lot, pumped up and snorting on the sidelines.

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Drummers announce the start. Drummers also march back to the start line after a
race. The racer's cart returns minus the bullocks, often pulled by his young sons.

A roar goes up and a race cart whizzes by, if bullock carts can whiz. I think this one
does. It surprises us with its speed. The racer, one hand grasping a tail like a tiller,
the other wielding a stick - more for his own balance at that point than anything else
- shoots past. It is hard to say who is in control, man or beast. The audience
applauds. A cloud of dust covers our cameras. The drunk makes rude remarks about
our incompetence. The `security' team, aiming to clear the track of people, stands in
the middle of it, giving us meaningful glances. What about us, they say. So we
photograph them too.

The "Dress Circle" and "balcony" seats for optimal, safe viewing.

Meanwhile, a huge yell alerts us to the fact that the next racer is now metres away
and is bearing down on us at some speed. We, security team and all, scatter out of
harm's way in panic. We are just in time and the cart speeds past. The rider is at full
stretch and is giving it his all. The crowd closes in. The security team rids the tracks
of intruders only to stand again in the middle of it, posing for us.

The next race is critical, the racer superb. This is the farmer who is close to 60.
Emboldened by the easy attitude of the crowd, I stand up pretty near this time,
wanting to get the man's face clear and close. That is when the drunk does his bit.
With all the noise on, I fail to notice him hunching down just behind my knees. I take
a small step back and nearly fall over the drunk. Lunging forward to avert him means
I am millimetres away from the cart and can feel the breath of the animals. And yes,
I did see the face of the racer up close, far closer than I had ever wanted to.

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 A returning cart, minus its bullocks, is heralded by drummers.

The crowd generously gives everybody a cheer. The drunk looks at me with injured
innocence. I look at him with feelings the editor of Frontline will not print. The racer
is a puff of dust on the horizon. It takes some moments to sink in: I had come close
to being one of the few humans ever run over and killed by a bullock cart. In a race.
Even as I had pulled away from the line of the cart, the wheel on my side touched
the edge of my canvas shoe. The last two shots were more accidental than
intentional.

These are not your everyday bullock carts. As bullock carts go, these are
pretty snazzy racers - much smaller, sleeker and relatively lightweight.

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There are a couple of racers who lose control. Apparently, this happens when the
stronger of the animals has independent ideas about the route it wants to take and
when the rider is unable to quell the rebellion. One swerves off the track and nearly
smashes into the straw-piled carts filled with now-alarmed spectators. Another
careers off the other track into the crowd and needs help to stop.

When the sun sets and the trinket merchants shut shop, the bullocks are
untied and the crowd heads for home. The carnival is over.

Meanwhile, the vendors, the makeshift stalls, the trinket merchants and the sellers of magic potions do a
brisk trade. The racers untie the animals from their carts. The drunk staggers off into the sunset. And we
head for the exit with much of the crowd. The carnival is over.

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Volume 23 - Issue 16 :: Aug. 12-25, 2006
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU

FILM

A theatre story

ANNIE ZAIDI
in New Delhi

The documentary points to the need for the theatre of the committed and
the brave, and for the need to keep such theatre alive.
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

A Janam performance in progress.

ON the streets, in slums, at workers' unions, the show has gone on for more than
three decades now, with a disparate bunch of committed individuals, collectively
known as Janam, bringing the theatre of the people to the people. It was the spirit,
ideals and hopes that drive the group that film-maker Lalit Vachani wanted to
capture through his film Natak Jari Hai. That he has succeeded is a fact that the
group itself readily testified to, during the first public screening of the documentary.

Jan Natya Manch, better known as Janam, was formed in 1973 when young activists,
including Safdar Hashmi, broke away from the Indian Progressive Theatre
Association (IPTA) and struck out on their own, determined to take forward the baton
of progressive theatre, independent of political arm-twisting. In fact, Janam looks
upon itself as the inheritor of the IPTA's legacy - a legacy of bringing secular,
progressive, democratic theatre to the people. Over the decades, nearly 70 plays
have been created and tens of thousands of performances held across the country.
Popular plays such as Machine, Aurat and Halla Bol have been translated into several
languages, or adapted effortlessly to suit workers' circumstances in any part of the
world.

Natak Jari Hai is especially significant in this context. Janam's Sudhanva Deshpande
said: "Documentation of theatre used to happen through published scripts mostly,
which can capture only so much about theatre. Lots of people feel that that can be
misleading. The same scripts can be done totally differently by different people, even

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with contradictory aims. Street theatre, in particular, is very hard to capture. With
film, we have the technology to document that aspect as well."

That is precisely what Lalit Vachani set out to do through his film. The film is a clear-
eyed, gently intimate look at the history of the group as also the diverse
backgrounds and ideologies of the people that comprise it. It is partly this diversity
that forms the soul of Janam.

While some of the senior members have adopted a clearly defined leftwing stance,
others are struggling to find a niche in the political spectrum that they are most
comfortable with. Moloyashree Hashmi and Sudhanva Deshpande have been
associated with the group for several years and have no doubts about the need for
people's theatre to be as politically active as it is socially aware. There is young
Sarita, who joined Janam after attending a college workshop with Moloyashree and
has made her peace with the group's ideology by focussing on the undeniable
relevance of the issues raised through the plays rather than which political outfit it is
affiliated to.

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Safdar Hashmi in action.

Uttam, who wanted to join the ranks of famous Bollywood stars at the first given
opportunity, admits that he first joined the group only because it was one of the few
groups that welcomed him without asking for qualifications or prior experience. Over
time, he has learnt to focus on the art of being an actor. Nevertheless, he must also
fight his personal battles at home, in the face of religious identity or the denial of
one.

However, individual differences seem to melt into an unwavering commitment when

it comes to performing street plays. It would be difficult at any rate, to disagree with
the stark strength of plays such as Machine and Aurat or to resist the light-hearted
way in which anger moults into Ye Dil Maange More, Guruji.

Images of a train journey to Kolkata, posters of Che Guevara in a boy's bedroom, old
black-and-white photographs up on walls, the last picture of Safdar Hashmi ever
taken - all of these are woven into the film's narrative. Sudhanva Deshpande
describes the film as a sort of group portrait of a bunch of political and cultural

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activists. "The best part is that these activists come across as real people, with real
personalities. Also, he's captured Safdar's personality very well."

Safdar Hashmi, who was killed during a performance of Halla Bol in Sahibabad in
1989 is one of the pivots on which the film rests. Fittingly, his death is where the film
takes off. Later into the film, the scene is revisited, and each tragic step recounted,
taking one through Hashmi's courage and the brutality of the murder, in the most
tender way possible.

Moloyshree Hashmi.

The film-maker was convinced that Hashmi's story was integral to the film, as it was
integral to Janam itself. Vachani said: "Natak Jari Hai was in fact the title of a play
they did in 1991. Safdar's story is central to the story of Janam. With his death, they
were thrust suddenly on the national stage, with the leader gone. People just had to
learn things. Everyone had to take on different roles, but they had the will not to
stop. To go on."

Vachani has captured not just the street performances but also the dramatic force of
the script. Parts of Machine were filmed especially, in a radical departure from the
visuals typically associated with street theatre. Characters emerged out of a sea of
black; words emerged from a shell of silence, broken only by the mechanical sounds
of the man-machine. Vachani said: "I was curious to see what happens when you
take the aesthetics of agitprop and transfer it to the proscenium form. It was
challenging because the conventions of street and proscenium are very different. But
my only intervention was the blocking of stage space." As it turned out, the
experiment was a successful one, for the impact of the play was just as strong, if not
stronger, on camera.

Although Vachani had been involved with theatre activity in his college days, he had
never witnessed street theatre at close quarters until recently. Attending one of
Janam's rehearsals fascinated him so much that he decided to document it. It was

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tougher than he had anticipated. One of the problems was that the performance was
shifting all the time.Crowd reactions to Janam's various performances proved to be
one of the most interesting aspects of the film. While the audiences were both
encouraging and receptive, their reactions varied from play to play. An election play,
written especially to campaign for a candidate, tended to draw dismissive comments.
This was an interesting insight into the kind of work the group does, since filming the
play itself is not always the best way to judge how powerful its impact has been.

The significance of a group like Janam is evident. The film-maker, for instance,
picked up on the fact that the first few people to show up for a performance were
always children, a reflection on the lack of sources of engaging local entertainment,
amongst the working classes in particular. Street theatre has the potential to fill that
gap between people and mainstream entertainment, while building awareness of
people's concerns simultaneously.

In documenting the journey of a theatre troupe like Janam, Natak Jari Hai also points
to the need for the theatre of the committed and the brave, the need for people who
keep such theatre alive.

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