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Featured Voices
Ajay Bhardwaj
Director's Bio/Filmography
Born 1964. Ajay Bhardwaj was associated with street theatre movement in Delhi before joining electronic media in 1990. He has Masters in Political Studies(JNU/1988) and Mass Communications (MCRC, JMI / 1990). From 1990 to 1996 he produced and directed a diverse range of television programmes like current affairs, election analysis, game shows, chat shows, popular science shows as well as infotainment programmes. From 1997 onwards he is making documentaries on cultural, political and development themes.
Ek Minute Ka Maun /A Minute of Silence (1997) was his first full-length, independent documentary. It captured the spontaneous student's protest in the aftermath of the brutal murder of Chandrashekhar Prasad, a left wing president of the student's union of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, by the henchmen of a mafia politician of Siwan, Bihar. This film addresses the critical issue of criminalisation of politics in India and the role of youth in reshaping the discourse on politics.
Kitte Mil Ve Mahi - where the twain shall meet (2005) is his second full-length independent documentary.
Rabba Hun Kee Kariye- Thus Departed Our Neighbours(2007) is his third full length independent documentary
Rabba Hun Kee Kariye
Thus Departed Our Neighbours/2007/Punjabi with English Subtitles
Rabba Hun Kee Kariye
While India won her independence from the British rule in 1947, the north western province of Punjab was divided into two. The Muslim majority areas of West Punjab became part of Pakistan, and the Hindu and Sikh majority areas of East Punjab remained with, the now divided, India. The truncated Punjabs bore scars of large-scale killings as each was being cleansed of their minorities.
Sixty years on, Rabba Hun Kee Kariye trails this shared history divided by the knife. For the first time a documentary turns its gaze at the perpetrators, as seen through the eyes of bystanders. While East Punjabis fondly remember their bonding with the Muslim neighbours and vividly recall its betrayal, the film excavates how the personal and informal negotiated with the organised violence of genocide. In village after village, people recount what life had in store for those who participated in the killings and lootings. Periodically, the accumulated guilt of a witness or a bystander, surfaces, sometimes discernible in their subconscious, othertimes visible in the film.
Kitte Mil Ve Mahi
where the twain shall meet /2005/Punjabi with English Subtitles
Kitte Mil Ve Mahi
Punjab, 'the land of the five rivers', is also the land of the Sufis or Muslim mystics. In 1947, Punjab was partitioned on religious lines amidst widespread bloodshed, and today there are hardly any Punjabi Muslims left in the Indian Punjab. Yet, the Sufi shrines in the Indian part of Punjab continue to thrive, particularly among so-called 'low' caste Dalits that constitutes more than 30% of its population.
Kitte Mil Ve Mahi explores for the first time this unique bond between Dalits and Sufism in India. In doing so it unfolds a spiritual universe that is both healing and emancipatory. Journeying through the Doaba region of Punjab dotted with shrines of sufi saints and mystics a window opens onto the aspirations of Dalits to carve out their own space. This quest gives birth to 'little traditions' that are deeply spiritual as they are intensely political
Enter an unacknowledged world of Sufism where Dalits worship and tend to the Sufi Shrine. Listen to B.S. Balli Qawwal Paslewale - a first generation Qawwal from this tradition. Join a fascinating dialogue with Lal Singh Dil - radical poet, Dalit, convert to Islam. A living legend of the Gadar movement, Bhagat Singh Bilga, affirms the new Dalit consciousness.
The interplay of voices mosaic that is Kitte Mil Ver Mahi (where the twain shall meet), while contending the dominant perception of Punjab's heritage, lyrically hint at the triple marginalisation of Dalits: economic, amidst the agricultural boom that is the modern Punjab; religious, in the contesting ground of its 'major' faiths; and ideological, in the intellectual construction of their identity.
...rabba mere haal da mehram tu -Sai Shah Hussain
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