[Reader-list] Screening of a documentary film:School of Arts & Aesthetics Auditorium, JNU, New Delhi

[rohitrellan at aol.in]

School of Arts &Aesthetics- TPS Forum presents                             



Screening of a documentary filmfollowed by dialogue
School of Arts & AestheticsAuditorium
14th December, 2011
                                                    3 p.m. 



Drawing on extensive fieldwork in remote corners of rural Rajasthan andthe by-lanes of Jodhpur city, this documentary film on the broom, directed byNavroze Contractor, engages in conversation with a wide spectrum ofbroom-makers.  Their struggle for livelihoodis intersected with different stories of the broom provided by women and ritualattendants of shrines, traders, municipal sweepers and garbage collectors.Through the counterpoint of their voices, the film covers wide ground inopening the contradictory values and belief-systems of the broom. 




Steeped in the realities of caste, the broom is both a source oflivelihood for millions of people and the repository of traditionalknowledge.  Even so, it stigmatizesentire communities through its associations with pollution anduntouchability.  Highlighting thehumiliation and robust survival of India’s most downtrodden caste groups, whosehopes are at once catalyzed and complicated by the politics of reservations, Jharu-katha works towards a largerenvisioning of waste in urban India. Bleak and terrifying, this visionquestions the endurance of the broom and its capacity to reinvent itself in aceaseless process of change. 




Thefilm will be introduced by Rustom Bharucha, who worked on the concept andscript of the film.   Drawing on his bookRajasthan: An Oral History –Conversations with Komal Kothari and his curatorial work on the broomfeatured in Arna-Jharna: The DesertMuseum of Rajasthan, he will provide a brief context on the making of thefilm and will engage the audience in dialogue after the screening of the film.