Being a journalist it is easy to select such a topic that the story of manual
scavenging. The govt. of India have banned manual scavenging thrice.
But it is still continuing. Why particular people, living in particular con-
dition are forced to do manual scavenging? Is it because of they didn’t
get any other jobs? How much the factor of caste is involved in it? Are
they belongs to same caste? While doing the research we could under-
stand that the caste system based on jobs are continuing today. We made
a documentary regarding this topic. We tried many other media to reach
people. But it didn’t reach to larger audience. It remained as a marginal-
ized topic. That is why we made a film.
We had a lot of tension during the discussion. How can we tell
the story? On what perspectives we should tell the story? Where do I
stand? All these questions were important. Then we decided to tell the
story through the perspective of women. When men go for scavenging,
what will be the women do? That was the question lead to think about
the perspective of women. Women do the same work in households.
This topic catches the eye because of the profession. Being a journalist
we go through a lot of experiences. These experiences are the assets.
These experiences are transformed to another canvas. We should specify
our politics and stand while doing this. I think it has done in the movie.
While doing the movie, important thing was 6that what do you
need and what do you don’t need. And also what will you lose while
deciding this. But we know that people will come to the theatre because
of its politics. This was a risk.
Usually movies will have some winning formulas. We purpose-
fully decided not to follow such formulas. It is irritating and shocking
that, how the mainstream movies portray the black colour and daliit
communities. Mainstream Malayalam movies are revolving around the
middle class insecurities only.
The huge success of ‘sairat’ movie in Marathi is an example of
how people from north accept the movies. Such things are happening in
Tamil Nadu too. Such political movies are getting promoted there. Peo-
ple like Vetrimaran and Dhanush come forward to direct, produce and act
in such movies. But in Kerala we celebrate anti-Dalit, male chauvinist
movies. Thus our mask of fake progressiveness are tearing day by day.
Theyyam 37