Insights

Date: 12 th August, 2013.
Venue: A girl's school in Kottayam.
Event: Day 1, Screening of Voices Unheard Part I

As the credits rolled, i looked at the screen and closed my eyes. There was silence. A silence that is much more louder than a round of applause. I turned towards the students who looked at me perplexed. I didn't know what to say. 

"Any questions ?" I asked them. No one replied. 

I looked at the teacher who was in charge of the class. She looked at me and smiled and then looked at her wrist watch. I didn't know what to do. Clearly, the teacher felt i was wasting their time and I on the other hand was hoping someone would ask me a question.

"Sir.. I have a question." A girl who had been trying to get my attention from the back of the classroom finally managed to do so by raising her voice. 

"Can you share your experiences with us ?" 

An avalanche of thoughts went through my head. Suddenly my heart stopped beating and i was in Vadavathoor, right in the middle of the waste dumping yard, looking at the people who lived nearby. 

I still remember their faces, their furious gaze, their hatred towards people who showed them pity, their laughter which lacked happiness but echoed with despair, their survival instinct which kept them going, their deteriorating homes that craved for guests, their eyes that had lost it's shine and their faith that had gone missing. 

I remember feeling guilty for asking them some stupid questions."You asked us why we are not moving from here right ? "  Asked the lady who was standing next to my car. 

"Look at this ! "

She was holding an inhaler in one hand and an empty bottle of medicine in the other and she was coughing in between. 

" The cost of this inhaler ... is Rs.98... and for this..Rs.36... Today, my daughter asked me for her bus fare, I didn't have money to give her.. Now you tell me...Should i send my daughter to school or save some money and buy the medicine instead ?"

She started coughing again and pointed at the fumes rising up from the dump site. An up and down bus journey till her daughter's school and back would cost about Rs.7, I thought.

"And you are asking us to leave this place !" I looked at her. I didn't know what to say.

I remember those two kids in Shantigram ( a colony near Vadavathoor dump) who followed us everywhere, whenever we went to shoot in the following days. They were fascinated by our cameras. While Ashik was capturing some visuals and photographs of those kids, i looked at them and i felt that they were similar to my own nephews. Naughty, playful, almost of the same age but very silent.

I could still see the muncipal water supply tap and a large queue of people awaiting their turns to collect water. I will never forget the 2 kudam(containers used to fill water) rule which made perfect sense to everyone over there. Each household could collect 2 containers of water which came once in 8 days. The containers were of different shapes and sizes and some of them were very colourful. Some families used old paint containers instead of kudams to collect water because it was bigger. Ladies gave them a malicious look but they didn't have the energy to even start an argument. Everyone awaited their turns in a queue silently, hoping that by the time they reach the tap, there would be enough water to fill their own kudams. 

Their laughter echoed through the different chambers in my heart. I remember their enthusiasm in showing us different types of snails that were there in every household. When they were describing what they look like and how they move, they were laughing, perhaps laughing at their own fate. 

I remember looking inside a well which was almost empty and rich in bacterial content. Despite of knowing that, people still used the water in it for drinking purpose. I remember the dump. The white sea of plastic that it is. The ergets who had taken abode. The fumes of death that came up from the dump. The kids. The kudam. The lady with the inhaler. The well, the bottomless pit that it is. I remembered everything. 

I had so much to say. I didn't know where to begin.

" Excuse me... We don't have much time left."  The class teacher told me.

" Uh ..ok..." I looked at the girl who asked me the question and said: 

"The kid you saw in the documentary...cannot speak...was born like that."

The bell rang. My time was done. I thanked the students and walked out of the classroom. I wondered whether or not the documentary might have left any impression in those young hearts. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my handkerchief and walked towards the principal's room. The class teacher was walking alongside me. She was smiling at me.

"Why do you wanna make documentaries like this ? Why can't you make films ?"  She asked.

I looked at her and smiled. 

"Thank you mam for giving me this opportunity." I said, then I walked away.