Our Correspondent
New Delhi, 25 Jun 2022 15:00 IST
Abhinava Bhattacharyya’s poetic documentary leaves one with a sense of foreboding about what the future holds.
“This is time. It’s even more dangerous than a snake,” says an inhabitant at the banks of the Yamuna, a watercourse that once had a pristine past and faces an unknown future. The title Jamnapaar translates to ‘Beyond the Yamuna’, as Abhinava Bhattacharyya’s short documentary seeks to explore how the inhabitants on the banks of the river relate to its degraded presence.
Although the Yamuna has a place of pride in history textbooks as being a waterway frequently used by emperors of yore, the current situation of the river makes one think long and hard about the real price of human civilization. We see a man performing his prayers in the river, as sludge and grime line its banks. We see a man collecting bits of plastic that float in the river and hear from a tea seller, Puran Khalifa, who has earned his living by the river and runs a tea shop on its banks. Through his eyes, we get a glimpse of the Yamuna as it was a few decades ago, pure and beautiful, far from the state that it is now in.
Poetic but with a sense of foreboding, the documentary enables us to imagine what the future holds. Bhattacharyya allows the images to speak for themselves, evoking nostalgia, the past, as well as the imagination of the people tied to the river. As the images slowly seep into our minds, the debris and garbage leave a lasting, horrific impression.
The film is being screened virtually as part of A Showcase of Student Films: Creative Documentary Course, New Delhi by the Dharamshala International Film Festival Virtual Viewing Room. The films have been made by students of the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication in New Delhi.
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