Escape through films
INDRANI DUTTA
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With filmmaking as their window to the world, two destitute children in Kolkata have indeed come a long way.
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Award winner: A still from "Inner Eye".
TO 11-year-old Sahiful Mondol whose childhood was spent breaking mud boulders with a brick, winning has suddenly become a way of life. For three years in a row he, along with Ashikul Islam — his roommate at the destitute boys home where he now stays — has won awards for their short films in the children's category at an international film festival. Now, he has been selected to sit on the jury. A long journey, indeed, in a short span of time.
Troubled lives
Born to a mentally ill mother, Sahiful lost his father when he was three years old. Thus the job of earning not only his own bread but also that of his family of four fell upon his slender shoulders at a time when he should have been playing. He worked from sunrise to sunset as a farm-hand for five rupees a day, ran after goats for a plate of food for years before he was picked up by the Centre for Communications and Development, an organisation providing shelter and education for such boys and sent to Muktaneer, (a shelter without fetters) at Madyamgram on the northern fringes of the city.
Ashikul Islam, his co-director, has a similar tale to tell. Born to a widowed mother, Ashikul roamed the streets as a beggar since he was four years old. But that proved too rough a life for the infant, as other beggars resented him and regularly snatched away his daily earning. He moved on to sweatshop — a leather factory where he worked as a child labourer. He was then barely nine years old. In 2000, while still at the factory, the CCD rescued him and he began a new life at Muktaneer.
Many of the boys in Muktaneer had been robbed of their childhood by circumstances that led them to work long hours at teashops, leather units or brick kilns. Some were being smuggled out of the country for camel racing in West Asia. Abandoned, they prepared to take each day as it came till CCD found them and gave them back their childhood or whatever remained of it.
Take Alamgir, who was assistant director to Sahiful and Ashikul. His working life started at three years chasing birds all day long at a brinjal farm. From there, he landed in a teashop where a pot of boiling water was thrown at him for breaking a cup. He also lost his job, after which Muktaneer rescued him. He still carries the scars and cannot believe that he is being fed, educated and clothed without having to toil hard.
Today filmmaking has become their window on the world and the prizes these destitute kids have brought back home every year since 2004 are only spurring them on.
Honing their skills
Their first brush with filmmaking came from a workshop held by Palestinian filmmaker Hicham Kayed when he came to the city for the Kolkata Film Festival in 2003. Another such workshop by Manav Jalan of Gauranga Films (who made "Safed Hathi") further honed their skills. That was the when they were taught to paint their "filmi" thoughts on paper and then get the script ready. They were also taught the technicalities of handling a camera and the importance of angles and frames. Their first entry — a 15-minute film called Ami (I am) — was produced by Gauranga Films and won them the grand prize at the "Kids for Kids" festival held at Athens, an international festival presenting films made by children for children. The International Centre for Films for Children and Young people (CIFEJ) created this forum, under the auspices of the UNICEF and the UNESCO, to promote excellence in audio-visual and culturally diverse media for children and young people. Their award-winning entry this year was called "Inner Eye". A 12-minute film, it was about how society and the medical community shunned a person they suspected wrongly of carrying the HIV virus. His only solace was his friendship with a blind man, to whom he leaves his eyes as he dies of an undiagnosed disease.
This year, Sahiful was appointed on a youngster jury. He shares this honour with Kishan Shrikanth. The 10-year-old Kishan and Sahiful will be the only four Asians on the young jury list where kids from 14 other countries will sit. Known professionally as Master Kishan, he is a 10-year old Bollywood child artiste-turned-director whose 216-minute feature film, "C/O Footpath", is based on the past lives of the likes of Ashikul and Sahiful. He is sure to go a long way. But so will Sahiful and his friends and they will do so despite starting life with a handicap that they have now turned to their advantage.
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