Beyond IT and BT
PRASHANTH G.N.
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As part of a larger series, Growing Up, BBC World is airing acclaimed television journalist Dick Bower's four-part series, Being Indian, beginning tomorrow
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THE OTHER FACEThe first part of Being Indian explores the life of a family involved in the work of cremation
What is it to be Indian today? An engineer in hi-technology urban India, a farmer in the ruralscape, a classical musician, a beedi roller, petty shop owner in a slum, high-flying journalist or a worker in the burial grounds of the Ganges? It is so many things to be Indian in modern India — the bright spots and the dark spots that are not easy to grasp. What you grasp is in a microcosm sort of way. Acclaimed British television journalist and documentary producer Dick Bower is doing precisely that — to understand what it is to be Indian through one or more microcosms. A series he has made on India with Rockhopper TV, Being Indian, will air on BBC World beginning March 4.
The series, which explores what it is to be Indian in modern India through the lives of four children coming from very different social backgrounds, is part of a larger series the BBC is running through March, titled Growing Up season that looks at children and the world. Other series on air through March are African School that looks at life in Africa through African children and Coming of Age that catches up with children across the world from widely different backgrounds and celebrates their coming of age, apart from looking into issues around religion, consumerism and minority rights.
Glaring truths
The first part of Being Indian explores the life of a family involved in the work of cremation on the banks of the Ganges through a young, "untouchable" boy from Patna, nine-year-old Biru Mallik. It looks at how cremation is the habitat of the boy and the family. The second part is about a wealthy middle-class family in Delhi seen through the eyes of a 15-year-old girl Isha Dua who goes to an elite public school. It looks into her everyday activity, her friends and a project they take up on slums in Delhi. The third part looks at a seven-year-old girl Sanju Benia hailing from a remote tribal family in Orissa. Sanju, like Biru, is an "untouchable" too but comes from a tribal setting. The "untouchability" in tribal Orissa contrasts with "untouchability" on the Ganges. The fourth part explores the life of 12-year-old Renuka Yenkoba in a village in Karnataka. Renuka, who works in the fields to support her family, is on the verge of marriage. This part looks at child marriage in an agrarian setting.
Being Indian, Bower says, looks at the contrast of an urban middle-class and a remote rural/tribal India.
"Being Indian is not only about high-technology urban India we see today. It is also about people who work in burial grounds, live in remote tribal areas, face "untouchability" or child marriage in modern India."
Contrasts
The images of "untouchability" and child-marriage, Bower offers, are not meant to typify India but only to pitch forth the contrast that it is.
The Ganges too, he clarifies is not an obvious way of understanding India — something that Western thought has done for long. "That the obvious is a trap is not true. It (life around the Ganges for instance) is probably obvious to people who live there, but not always to people outside. This is to show people outside of the social life of modern India."
Bower spent two weeks on research. He points out that there were people who did not want to be part of the series. "Obviously, the camera is disruptive of their life. But the good offices of UNICEF India made it possible for me to find children who volunteered to be part of the series. I am thankful to all of them. They were a great bunch of kids."
Social obligations
Bower, who has worked in national news and documentaries for over 17 years, has made films for the BBC, ITV, Channel Four, FIVE, Discovery Channel, the History Channel and BBC World.
For the last 18 months, he was series producer on Life, a series produced by TVE, making programmes for BBC World from around the world about development, social and political issues.
Bower, who was producer at BBC Television News, Senior Producer at ITN and News Editor at TV-am is now with Rockhopper TV as Series Producer.
The first part of Being Indian will be aired on March 4, 8 p.m. and March 5, 4 p.m..
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