The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Much water hasn’t flowed since his documentary

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Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Much water hasn’t flowed since his documentary

Sruthi Krishnan

R.R. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: When R.R. Srinivasan’s documentary ‘The death of a river’ was released in 1999, non-bailable warrants were issued against him. Things haven’t changed much. His recent work, ‘En Peyar Palar’ (My name is Palar), about how sand quarrying and industrial effluents are ravaging the Palar, is bound to do more than just ruffle feathers.

“I liked photographing beautiful things,” summarises his point of view when he started photographing at the age of 12.

It changed when his grandmother passed away. “I went mad,” he pauses. He does not fill in those pauses.

In ‘En Peyar Palar’ too, after an unflinching narration by persons living on the riverside, the audience is left to ponder over pauses as the silence of the river fills the screen.

The emotional upheaval after his grandmother’s demise affected his work — it became more personal. He was in college then.

He became involved with the Kanchanai Film Society in Tirunelveli that worked towards taking serious cinema to non-metropolitan audiences. Meanwhile, he graduated in English Literature and did an MA in Folklore.

He never left the banks of the Tamirabarani, which became the focus of the documentary and that not only changed his vision as a filmmaker but also catapulted him to the national stage. The documentary was about the sensational case of 17 persons who died during a protest.

“I could not just watch,” he describes the shift from the personal to the public arena of activism.

“I came to know the true Tirunelveli, the one dissected by caste and class only then. From being an ardent follower of Gandhi, I became more drawn towards Ambedkar,” a transition that informed his later films.

‘The Untouchable Country’, a documentary on the condition of Dalits, was screened at the World Conference against Racism at Durban in 2001.

“En Peyar Palar is very different from The death of a river,” sums up his learning. Instead of a passionate outcry against the system, ‘En Peyar Palar’ is a clinical examination from a distance. But, there continues to be a uniting thread — his view rooted in the trenches.

“There is a balance now. I have realised both Gandhi and Ambedkar are relevant,” he smiles with a maturity that he says comes with age.

“While making ‘En Peyar Palar’, I bathed in the river; I stayed and ate with the people I interviewed. I formed bonds. That is what I want to do now,” is where his journey is now, having completely blurred the line between his life and work.

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