Urban Public Space

The Film Festival of South Asian Documentaries

Deshkal Society in association with Heinrich Boll Foundation organised 'Travelling Film South Asia', a film festival of south asian documentaries with the support of Himal at Delhi and Patna.

The idea behind the Festival was to Make and Unmake the South Asia. The image of South Asia today exemplifies deep tension, insecurity and destruction. War kills people, destroys development and the process through which differences are harmonised in a regional framework. Yet South Asia is also a region with a strong democratic culture and history of struggle and political consciousness. However, there is little appreciation of the dynamic forces working to bring about peace, cohesion, equality and justice within each country and within each region.

The films showed at the festival challenge stereotypical ideas about individual, culture, religion movement, organisation and politics to portray a new, creative and challenging way of understanding the region.

Delhi & Patna

Screaning of  South Asian Documentaries started on 8th February 2002 in Delhi. The Festival was inaugurated by noted Novelist and Literateur Bhishma Sahani at Ambedkar Auditorium, Andhra Bhawan, New Delhi. At Patna screening of the first ever South Asian Documentary Film Festival of Bihar started on 2nd  March,2002. Kanak Mani Dixit, Editor, HIMAL inaugurated the festival. Mr. Dixit called for cross-border journalism in South Asia to bring about a socio-cultural unity in the region. He said that there was a need for the media to get over their parochial outlook in different countries and shift focus on the entire region as an entity.

In this festival all together 15 films (coming from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and India) were screened in six days at different corners of Delhi and Patna.

The films screened were:

1. King for a day
2. Ramlila
3. My Migrant Soul
4. Born at home
5. Jari Mari: Of Cloth and Other Stories
6. A Rough Cut on the Life and Times of Lachuman Magar
7. Colours Black.
8. The Loom
9. A sun sets in
10. The killing terraces
11. Between the devil and the deep river
12. King of dreams
13. We homes chaps
14. King for a day
15. Ramlila

Outcome:-

1. A good number of participants were from younger generation particularly researchers, documentary makers, journalists, etc.
2. The festival motivated  younger documentary makers.
3. Documentaries were perceived as effective medium of communication for smaller places.
4. Participants build up a cohesive understanding of the Society, Politics and Culture of ‘South Asia’ through documentaries.

Rohi Rang

(colours of the desert)

a Sufi music performance

by a group of Mir singers from Pugal, Western Rajasthan

Mirs of Pugal
And their tradition of
Sufiyana Kalam

Deshkal Society organized a Sufi music performance by a group of Mir singer from Pugal, Western Rajasthan on 29th March, 2005 at the Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. This initiative was part of the society’s effort to facilitate in creating newer spaces of representation for culture and development of marginalized communities. While inaugurating the Chairman of the society and eminent sociologist Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed remarked that we all suffer from a wrong notion that traditional music lacks adaptability to circumstances. Quite contrarily it has been transformative in nature and has effectively negotiated the changing circumstances providing strength to the process of building bridges between different communities in our country. He further said that there is immense scope to carry out research on such traditional forms of music that has flourished under the multifarious landscapes and ripples of time in a vast country like India. Sanjay Kumar, the secretary of the society thanked the well-wishers of the society for their tireless support for such causes and reiterated that the society is committed to facilitate the knowledge based activism and in this regard it will continue to hold such programmes in near future.

Contours of the tradition and Landscapes

Pugal is around 80 km northwest of the Bikaner city. The musical tradition of Sufiyana Kalam in Pugal developed in a predominantly ‘pastoral context in late medieval and early modern times. From medieval times Pugal had been an important settlement on the route from northern India to Bahawulpur and Multan. This musical tradition is popular around 80-90 km south and north of Pugal.

Vast stretches of sandy plains, extensive grasslands interspersed with dunes merging into limitless horizons dotted with long lines of caravans formed the geographical backdrop in which this musical tradition unfolded. In addition to centuries of contact along trade routes, cultural exchanges built around marriage and kinship ties have woven together different communities in these contiguous regions. These have bequeathed to the Pugal region the rich spiritual traditions of Sufi mystics of the earstwhile West Punjab, Bahawulpur and Multan.

The north western region of the Bikaner district is dotted with many popular dargahs, the most popular being those of Panch Peer, Mohammad Shah Rangeela, Charkiwala Peer, Lakh Daata Peer, Peer Pathan, Maskeen Shah, Peer Veekay Sheikh and others.

The singers of these mystical songs, mostly of the Mirasi community, are called Mir-I-Alam in the local parlance. The semi nomadic muslim pastoralists and the Rajputs have been the main patrons of the Mirs. Be it a urs at a Sufi dargag; an auspicious occasion in a household or in clusters of temporary settlements in nomadic encampments of the pastoralists, the ecstatic performances of the Mirs have served as the means to attain heights of mystical experiences. In a predominantly pre-literate oral culture, the mehfils of Mirs were also occasions for dissemination of knowledge—moral, spiritual and political.

The Mirs also sing compositions by Amir Khusro,, Mirabai, Kabir, Achalram, the regal Mand from Bikaner and Marwari folk songs. Collective dancing to the lilting tunes of been and dhol are an intrinsic part of the performances of the Mirs.

Mirs and Sufi Mystics

Kalams of Khwaja Ghulam Farid, Ali Haider, Baba Bulleh Shah, Hazrat Shah Hussain, Hazrat Sultan Bahu, and BabaSheikh Farid in Saraiki and Punjabi, form an intrinsic part of the repertoire of Mirs. Most of these compositions stress on love as the basis of the relationship with God, they disregard religious boundaries and lay emphasis on an ascetic withdrawal from worldly pursuits and yearning for communion with god through mystical experience. Apart from being deeply mystical, intensely humanist, and robustly pluralist many of these compositions reflect a profound veneration for nature.

The Sufi and musical traditions of the Bahawulpur region have contributed the most in the formation of this musical tradition represented by the Mirs of Pugal. Singing sufiyana kalam of Khwaja Ghulam Farid from Bahawulpur froms the kernel of this tradition.

Ghulam Farid (1841 A.D. to 1901 A.D.) was born in Chachran in Bahawulpur state. He belonged to the Chisti order of Fariduddin Shankar Ganj. Ghulam Farid has very effectively used love ballads like Heer-Ranjha, Sohni-Mahiwal, Sassi-Punnu to vividly depict the love between the human soul and the divine. His compositions reveal a merked influence of the Bhakti movement.

Many of the kalams of Ghulam Farid popular in Pugal are compositions in praise of the pastoral landscape of the desert. One of his extremely popular kalam, ‘kaldi jungle vich’ is a pastoral romance, vividly describing the blooming of the desert to life after the first rains of the monsoon.

Waning of performing opportunities and crisis of livelihood

After dissolution of the princely state of Bikaner in the 1950s, the fortunes and pre-eminence of the thakurs of Pugal, one of the main patrons of Mirs, dwindled gradually. The diminishing of the patronage by the muslim pastoralists has been the result of the displacement of traditional life patterns with the coming of the Indira Gandhi Canal. The canal has brought with it the dominance of a new clock time, work discipline and a cash economy firmly regulated by the market. The making of the heterogeneous society of the IGNP Canal command area has profoundly altered the meaning of social relations, kinship ties and led to the dissolution of many socio-cultural practices that were intimately linked to the pre canal human geography and ecology. The Sufiyana kalam singing of Pugal is one such cultural practice.

It is the marginalisation of the tradition of singing sufiana kalam that sets the broad context in which we, along with a handful of Mir musicians are trying to open up issues relating to the reinvigoration of the tradition and in the process try and address the ‘crisis’ of livelihood of the Mir musicians.

The ‘live’ performance is with a view to broaden the horizon and scope of the audience as well as the performing opportunities for the Mirs.

Future: Representation in Urban Space

Deshkal Society considers representation of the folk culture of these marginal communities, with all its vigour, resilience and rustic sensibilities, in the urban mileus as of utmost importance. Towards fulfilling this, it plans a process of radical pedagogy with children, primarily in urban contexts. This is to foster a holistic understanding about folk culture, its continuing relevance not only in the contemporary society, but in enriching our understanding about past and visions of future.