The sky unusually looked so red,
The air was like fire,
A fierce goddess entered the villages,
And killed the people with diseases,
So people remained in their homes,
And did not go outside, In this great famine,
Some died and some survived

Lines from ‘Durbhikshya Boli’ - a poem by poet Sri.Manohar Meher from Sinapali, who witnessed the seven famines of 1899.

This documentary film talks about one hundred years of drought and lore in the districts of Kalahandi and Naupada in Orissa and its impact on the lives of tribes - Gond and Bhunjia. Produced by National Folklore Support Centre (Chennai), in collaboration with Adibasi Sanskruti Gabesana Parishad (Orissa) as a part of Orissa Digital Community Archive Project. Funded by Ford Foundation.

Details of the film in NFSC site

Thanks to Mr. M.D. Muthukumaraswamy ( Director NFSC) for giving me this project and Mr. Mahendra Kumar Misra (ASGP) for helping me realize it.

I learned a lot while doing this film - Simple facts like, my life in Kerala and metros in India never told anything about India. As Gandhi said India’s heart is in her villages. In a way one can call India, a big village. Though the project started with the plan of representing the effect of drought in those regions, what I saw was - the tribes were not only suffered from the drought but they were even badly affected by landgravers and corrupted officials. They were displaced form their own land. Gonds shifted to Raipur, remains a living truth of displacement. Interviews with Mr. Ravi Das, Secretary (Kalahandi Vikas Parishad) also proved this fact.

As Amarthya Sen says in ‘Poverty and Famine’(1981)

“Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being no food to eat”

Folk On

Guess, its been quite some time since I could pen a blog. In fact in past few months I guess I have had more than what I expected to write on and to share with you. Lots of travel and lots of new experiences... New vision on life and new enthusiasm. Like the book I am reading now - a Malayalam translated version of Pablo Nerudas Autobiography – the life is playing a true zig-zag game. But for some crazy reason the time and space is so blocked somewhere -somehow on the run to conquer certain other destiny. I hope, soon I can manage to get some time to shed the cocoon of my reality and scribble a few words of fantasy and facts.
For time being, I am sharing you a few interesting videos I could shoot-edit and present. It is a collection of 11 songs - the event coverage of a music concert we (NFSC- www.indianfolklore.org) conducted recently. Far from the illusions of Page 3 music and gimmicks and gymnastics on stage, this was something really special -true to real life. NFSC and Musician Oliver Rajamani joined together to conduct this event at a Narikkuruva (A Gypsy Community) Settlement at Villupuram in Tamil Nadu. The charm of the whole event was the hospitality and participation of Narikkuruva Men-Women-Children. Oliver played so many Gypsy instruments like Ud (Arabic), Setar (Irani), Rabab (Afghanai), Guitar (European) as well as our very own Sarod. Accompanied by his band members on various other instruments from different parts of the world. The songs were mainly folk songs in different languages with the touch of fusion. A good example is a Tamil folksong sung in Texas Style on the Irani instrument Setar.
It was so touching to see people offering chains made of beads to the Band members as a token of love. Even I have something special to remember for this life time - When we were about to leave a young Narikkuruva mother called me and put a chain around my neck. The link to access these videos are given below.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nfscindia