Baheliya is a Central Indian nomadic forest
tribe. For their alleged involvement with illegal poaching of wild animals and
skin trade, they are unofficially also known as the 'criminal tribe'. What do
their children imagine their future to be? Brought up in the Baheliya
tradition, some have now been weaned away and are studying in schools. Caught
between the ire and apathy of the state and the public and the their own dreams
of a respectable future, their film is a story of this trap... the Baheliya's
trap.
Wednesday 10 April 2013
Tuesday 12 March 2013
The 360 degree turn...
Experiencing some days of filmmaking
with Baheliya children of Panna, Madhya Pradesh
The
urban gaze I have grown up with, for a magical animal like the tiger, is
nothing but Awe. Mesmerism. Amazement. I later took upon myself to tell these
riveting tiger tales and the tales of other wild lives, through the make belief
world of the movies.
But
when someone like me, encounters a gaze, which is fixed only on the value of
the bones and the skin of a live tiger, then your world is slammed into a 360
degrees turn and is forced to rethink your own much nurtured perspectives.
I with
a colleague of mine, met and worked with 11 Baheliya Children in Panna, MP,
enabling them to make a film about their lives.
Baheliya
also known as Pardhi, are a de-notified tribe, infamous as poachers and traders
of wild animal body parts. They had a pride of place in the courts of the
erstwhile Maharajas at the turn of the last century but with the shrinking
forests and the control transiting to the state, their skills and livelihood
options were slowly challenged and finally after the enactment of the Wildlife
Protection Act of 1972, declared criminals.
11
boys. Most having actively participated in animal hunts, were our students for
10 days. They were weaned away from their parents and put into a hostel
and sent to school. Most were between 6th to 9th grades.
One
day as we sat around talking about our lives, we began playing the ‘call’ game.
You do a call and I will guess and I will do one and you guess. It was nuanced,
of course. Not the usual tiger call and leopard call. But in what situation
would the animal call and in which way. Then suddenly there was an imitation from
the end of the room, which baffled me. Low soft short whistles. Not this one. I
don’t know! Baby peacocks! Holy shit! How did you get that?! And how did you
learn to imitate that so immaculately, I asked in obvious awe. They almost
blurted out in unison- when they went out hunting and wanted to catch an adult
peacock, they would call out like baby peacocks and invariably the mother would
come out and walk straight into our traps.
The
sledgehammer slammed straight into my face. The children were blasé about what
they had narrated and found my befuddled look hugely amusing.
We
found the leopard trapped in a leg trap (chap). Slowly we closed in from
all sides- my father, uncle and me, each of us with a thick stick in our hand.
Getting close we started hitting the leopard with it. Even I was hitting out
hard. Then the leopard died. So there would be blood all over, we asked. Not at
all! If the skin breaks then no one will buy it. So we need to be very careful
how we hit the animal. We have to keep it’s skin intact. It dies of internal
injuries.
Someone
claimed to have had the liver of a monkey, the other immediately rattled of the
medicinal properties of the tiger liver and how it tastes.
If the
stories were real or were mixed with moderate quantities of imagination, we
didn’t know as we were also enabling them to imagine, if that was possible. But
whatever it was…by the evening of the second day, with these stories pouring
out from all nooks and crevices, I needed a couple of stiff whiskies to steady
myself. To look at another way of encountering wildlife. Here, me and my
colleague were supposed to be the trainers but our moto of being co-voyagers in
this journey with the children, was emerging ever so true.
Baheliyas
kill to survive. For food mainly. Meat of the smaller mammals and birds,
sustain them. Monkey, Partridge, Honey Badger, Peacock, Hare, Wild Boar, small
Deers. Leopard Tigers and Lions came in with the emergence of the market for
bones and skins. From minor offenders of small game hunters they became
the notorious criminal tribe. The tiger population and the dwindling forest,
didn’t help the Pardhis. For reasons way beyond their doing, tiger numbers fell
to alarming levels and the Baheliyas were targeted rightly or wrongly for all
the poaching unearthed.
Stories
of wrongful imprisonment of their parents on trumped up charges, also started
flowing alongside the juvenile remand home experiences of our young filmmakers.
My son
who is 11 and loves cars also prides himself in showing off his knowledge of
the technical insights of the fancy machines under those fancy bonnets. It is
just an interest linkage. And these 11, were the children of the forests. It
was an occupational fallout that they would be one with the forest and it’s
dynamics. When you go out to trap animals, you bloody well know about their
life - inside out. You cannot make a mistake and go hungry. Or become the food.
The reason could be any, could be a reflection of their lives spent in hiding
or the label of criminals, or the sheer shrinking livelihood space or a skill
which was increasingly finding no takers – they were in transition. These
children were in the process of rethinking their lives. They called it
‘education’. Though we doubted if it was just that.
The
workshop at this point, around the 3rd day, threw up intense
debates. Were they the only killers? Are there bigger criminals than
them? Were they alone responsible for the crashing tiger numbers? The
decimating forests?
Delhi’s
Chief Minster for starters came out to be one of the first big criminals.
Having decimated 300,000 trees and all the life in and around it, she surely
could be one of the biggest ones. Most of the Baheliyas would hunt only
for their existence, only a few would for high stake commercial end. But the
Delhi Chief Minister would do it for the malls, highways and entertainment. The
children were aghast and also very amused. They couldn’t believe that people in
high positions, the educated people, could be so absurdly foolish.
The
criminality and the civility tags were turned around.
Yes
…taking life is wrong. There could be other professions, which could provide
livelihoods. Protecting the animals with their deep insight of the forest and
animals could be one of them. What film would they make?
A film
which will talk to their parents and try and convince them that their acts have
not only endangered themselves but also their next generation. A generation,
which is trying to see the future in a different way. A more sustainable way.
But our
thoughts were swirling around a different trajectory- will they be able to live
through their dreams of change. Will we the more powerful other, allow it?
Krishnendu Bose,
Panna,
February 2013
Watch this space to see the film made
by these 11 Baheliya Children…
Saturday 2 February 2013
Children Envision Sustainability
We feel so proud
to present three new films and three new sets of experiences, memories and
learnings from our last series of workshops...
Mahua- The Tree of Life ; set in villages
near Kanha in Madhya Pradesh, children find meaning in a tree which grows in
their backyard... in their forest. A meaning deeply entrenched in their life.
https://vimeo.com/58782264
The Story of an Unknown Island ; Sagar Island in the Sundarban delta is poised
on the threshold of development as a bridge comes onto their island bringing
with it electricity and many industrialisation projects. The children of Sagar
stand on the other side of this bridge imagining the fate of their island and
their lives...
https://vimeo.com/58776012
Sundarban- Forest Beautiful ; making a film, reframing realities, delving
within... is it a little handhold outside this whirlpool called life. Find out
what the young people of Hentalbari Island in Sundarban excavate....
https://vimeo.com/58769061
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