For turning the performance script S*x, M*rality and Cens*rship, which was developed with the help of an earlier research grant from IFA, into a stage production. The script specifically looks at at the censorship battles fought over the play Sakharam Binder and the audience and critical responses to the production. Audio and video material secured during the research phase will be incorporated in the envisaged docudrama to recreate the cultural context of the 1970s.
For researching and photo-documenting the tambu talkies (tent cinemas) that follow the route of the religious jatras (fairs) in Maharashtra. The history of the tambu talkies will be constructed by mapping the film distribution cycle and exhibition patterns, gathering old photographs and documents, and recording oral histories of the proprietors and distributors of the tambu talkies. Photo-documentation will capture the current state of the touring tent cinemas, covering such aspects as the audience profile, the ingenious projection systems and the innovative advertising strategies.
For research into the life of Gond artist Jangarh Singh Shyam and the events, characters and art philosophies that led to his untimely death in Japan. The researcher will identify appropriate areas of arts discourse for reading and analysis, and will travel to interview various individuals who have played significant roles in Jangarh Singh Shyam’s life. The research will subsequently provide the basis for a novel.
For preparatory research towards a screenplay for a feature-length film on Hindi writer Nirmal Verma. Through in-depth historical research on Verma’s European period, study of Verma’s published and unpublished writings, interviews with individuals who played significant roles in Verma’s life, the researcher will extend his literary knowledge of Nirmal Verma into a cinematic language.
For development of Family Tree, a film installation for public space. Family Tree will explore the psychological consequences of migration, especially loneliness, melancholy and the emotional turbulence caused by life and work in alien surroundings. The installation will attempt to deform the concept of the family tree in order to consider 21st century family lives, which are dynamic and constantly in motion.
For the dissemination of Cotton 56, Polyester 84, a theatre production set in the mill lands of Mumbai. This production is the outcome of an earlier IFA grant and brings to light issues concerning the lives of the mill workers of Girangaon who lost their jobs en masse as a result of the textile strike in Mumbai in the 1980s. To fulfil the play’s artistic and political agenda, twenty performances of the play will be staged for working classes, primarily in Mumbai and other places in Maharashtra, in order to provoke new ideas and perceptions about their own identity and position in today’s world.
For interdisciplinary workshops involving students of creative writing, film and graphic design towards generating short narratives, a screenplay and a storyboard on the life of Dadasaheb Phalke. The workshops will follow a sequential order, with the short narratives feeding into the writing of a screenplay, which will in turn lead to the creation of the storyboard. These separate outcomes may be independently published and disseminated, while the final storyboard is expected to form the basis of a feature film on Phalke.
For reconstruction of images, texts and video documentation generated during earlier IFA-funded workshops on Dadasaheb Phalke. Five short experimental films, a two-hour documentary film, and the Phalke Factory website will be the outcomes of this project.
For the production of a film on family photo-albums. The film will explore different elements of personal relationships to photo-albums by looking at how photographs can make for identification and a sense of continuity with the past, how they preserve memories, how albums are constructed based on an idealised notion of family, and how family albums can move from having purely personal to historical and archival relevance.
For research into the Bharuds––allegorical verses from the mid fifteenth century attributed to Sant Eknath. Compiled by the followers of the Bhakti saint, Bharuds exist in Maharashtra as written texts, apart from being recited as poems, sung as bhajans and kirtans, and dramatised during the pilgrimage of vari and other religious occasions. Combining ethnographic study of the vari with the social histories of the performers, the research will engage with the makings of this marginalised cultural tradition and examine the differences between its oral, written and performative forms.
