Report to Mother ~ Amma Ariyan (അമ്മ അറിയാൻ) ~ John Abraham. Malayalam, 1986.
Abraham’s last and most complex film is told in the form of an open letter from a son, Purushan (Mathew), to his mother (Kunhulakshmi) while interweaving fact and fiction with fragments of memory. Purushan sets out for Delhi with his friend Paru (Venkitesh), who is researching a thesis on Durga, the mother goddess, a figure traditionally though ambiguously representing the cohesive forces of nature. Along the way they find a hanged man (Harinarayan) who seems hauntingly familiar, a suicide. Reconstructing the identity of the corpse takes Purushan, and a growing body of young men who all have a stake in the youth’s history, from the northern highlands of Kerala to Southern Cochin and ends with a re-evaluation of a generation’s radical past. Along the way, Abraham filmed an actual quarry workers’ strike, echoing Kerala’s troubled 70s, and manages to endow both the journey and the central character with broader historical resonances in a manner reminiscent of the director’s master, Ritwik Ghatak’s Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (1974): a style full of irony and with a free-wheelingly innovative approach to sound and to narrative structures. The first production of the Odessa group, it was made entirely through raising funds from public contributions, supported by the Kerala State Film Development Corporation. Abraham’s death, shortly after the film was made, elevated it to cult status while also merging together the fate of the director with that of the main protagonist, both strongly inflected with Christian themes of innocence and martyrdom.
Abraham’s 2nd feature, his only one in Tamil, is an acid satire told in an innovative, surreal narrative style making excellent use of repetitions for comic effect, on brahminical bigotry and superstition. It was shot around Kunrathur near Chingelpet and at the Loyola College in Madras. A donkey strays into the brahminical enclave in a village and is adopted as a pet by Prof. Narayanaswami (Srinivasan). Ridiculed by his caste fellows, he asks the mute village girl Uma (Swathi) to look after it. When the girl’s stillborn baby is deposited outside the temple, the donkey is blamed and killed. Guilt then induces the priests to start seeing miracles. The dead donkey becomes an object of veneration and is ritually burned. In a symbolic sequence recalling Bunuel, the fire spreads and engulfs the entire village. Only the girl and the professor survive. Although Brahmin bigots tried to have the film banned, it is more a morality fable about innocence (Abraham claimed Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar, 1966, as an inspiration) and guilt, recalling parts of Ajantrik (1957) by Abraham’s FTII teacher Ghatak. Although the film received a national award, the Tamil press ignored the film. Even in late 1989, Doordarshan thought it prudent to cancel a scheduled TV screening.
#AgraharathilKazhuthai #அக்ரகாரத்தில்கழுதை #JohnAbraham
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsQ47lq3-pw
Rahne Ko Sadaa:
Rahne ko sadaa dahar me aata nahi koi
Tum jaise gaye aise bhi jaata nahi koi
Ik baar to khud maut bhi ghabra gayi hogi
Yun maut ko seene se lagata nahi koi
Darta hoon kahin khushq na ho jaaye samundar
Raakh apni kabhi aap bahata nahi koi
Saaqi se gila tha tumhe, maikhaane se shikvaa
Ab zeher se bhi pyaas bujhata nahi koi
Maana ki ujaalon ne tumhe daag diye the
Beraat dhale shamma bujhata nahi koi
Rahne ko sadaa dahar me aata nahi koi
Tum jaise gaye aise bhi jaata nahi koi
English Translation by Pritish Nandy:
No one comes to stay on this earth forever
Yet no one goes the way you did
Even Death must have been taken aback
For no one embraces her the way you did
The startled Sea may dry up soon
For no one's ever offered her his own ashes
Your Messiah and Nemesis are both uncertain
For neither knows how to conceal your wounds
You complained about the Tavern and the Saqi
Yet none quenched thirst with venom your way
I concede sunlight scarred you
Yet the flame should have burned till night gave way
I wonder why you smile in your death
Everyone knows but no one will say
Countless complaints, futile charges
yet no one dare look into your eyes today
Every morning there was a knock on your door
Yet no one disturbs your slumber today
Everyone raises your bier so effortlessly
Yet no one suffered your tenderness this way
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nmetyg_pgs
Behind The Scenes from a Shoot at the Godavari River, Nanded, Maharashtra. #BehindTheScenes #Godavari #Nanded
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVUEjDfBRW4
The Bamboo Flute is Kumar Shahani’s cinematic tribute to the flute and its importance to Indian civilization.
#BirahaBhariyoHarAanganKone #BambooFlute #KumarShahani
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyKQaPoRDpU
Kasba (The Town) is a 1991 Indian drama film written and directed by Kumar Shahani. It is based on the short story "In the Ravine" by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. The movie is an important work in the Indian Parallel Cinema movement which started in the early 1970s. It is one of the last films to be part of the movement as it died out by the early 1990s.
#Kasba #KumarShahani #AntonChekhov
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syoJJzQlXq4
Flautist Suhas Joshi at Prithvi Cafe, Mumbai, 2015..
Cell Phone Capture..
I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (https://www.youtube.com/editor)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGJ8fKNqWrE