One of the major protagonists for the film is a young Muslim, an atheist who is suddenly confronting an identity that is being thrust upon him “Are you a Bengali or a Muslim?” is a question that sums up the tragic-irony of the times. One of Jul’s team said he experienced every day what has been scripted in the film. The other major protagonist is a “Bahurupi Hanuman” who becomes a fundamentalist (read supremacist tool) of the masters behind the (Ramjanmabhoomi) movement.
 
Jul Mukherjee was 10-11 years old that Sunday in 1992, when the Babri Masjid was demolished. He recalls with chilling horror the conversations within his home, at Howrah, that had suddenly (following through the trajectory of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement)legitimised hatred against Indian Muslims.  Jul remembers being very scared that day, Sunday December 6. “Those B…they have arms,” he overheard his father telling his mother that afternoon, referring to a Muslim locality not far from where they lived.
 
The childhood of most urban Indians that day was shadowed by this discourse of othering and hatred. So the Rabindrasangeet sung by Ezaz Ahmed became for Jul, and his team, a rallying point even as Bengalis, fully showcasing that the Muslims (a significant percentage of West Bengal’s population) among them had always been wholehearted participants in the cherished Durga Pooja. Never mind that the amnesia generated by the Ramjanmabhoomi hysteria had Jul’s mother wondering how an Ezaz could sing this traditional Bengali song so well?
 
The team behind this innovative and courageous venture will go to the censor board for a certificate. The film maker feels that there are two scenes in the film that might have made the ruling party in Bengal uncomfortable with its screening. One is where the protagonist says he is the son of the Prophet. The other is a slaughter scene whom some have called gory.
 
Though made out mistakenly to be a documentary, Jai Shree Ram, is an independent full length feature film, shot over a period of two years with the financial help and contribution of innumerable persons. Post production took another year.
 
“Social” media trolls belonging to the Hindutvawaadi camp have been violently trashing the film and threatening its director and team. “We are a Hindu state” and such a film cannot be shown, is their claim.  
 
The creative team behind this venture however is committed to screening it all over the country. “If nothing else, “says Jul talking to us, “by just projecting it on a white wall, breaking all the code of "CINEMA".
 
The link of English subtitled trailers of the film are available on You-Tube:

First trailer
 

Second trailer 
 

Third trailer
 

 
Bibliography:
Bahurupi: The term Bahurupi is came from the Sanskrit Bahu means many and Rupa means form. Bahurupis in Bengal are a group of folk performers who enact and depict different characters.
Hanuman: Signifying devotion and humility to a superior God, this form of the Monkey God is worshipped and also seen as leading the ‘army’ of Lord Ram in some dominant versions of Hinduism
Sree Ram: One of the revered Hindu Gods; also one of the re-born forms of Lord Vishnu, the Hindu Triumverate and in recent times (over three decades) both the focal and rallying point of a highly militarised and supremacist Hinduism
Hindutvawaadi: Derivative from Hindutva, the doctrine of a Hindu theocratic state (those who believe in the Hindu theocratic state)
Rabindrsangeet: Tagore Songs, written and composed by Rabindrnath Tagore; these renderings have distinctive charecteristics in the music of Bengal and are popular in both India and Bangladesh

The post Black Out – The West Bengal Police prevent screening of a film, Jai Shree Ram appeared first on SabrangIndia.

No Entry for the New Sun
By Vilas Rashinkar

With determination they set
the stamp of approval
on their own garrulous tongue
so it becomes easy
to collect a hundred tongues
and spit on the sun.
They prop up crumbled bastions
in ten places
with the twigs of history.
They unwrap the scriptures
from their protective covers
and insist –
‘These are commandments
engraved on stone.’
From pitch-back tunnels
they gather ashes
floating on jet-black water
and reconstruct the skeletons
of their ancestors,
singing hymns
of their thoughts
worn to shreds.
There is no entry here
for the new sun.
This is the empire
of ancestor-worship,
of blackened castoffs,
of darkness.
(Translated by Priya Adarkar)

———————————————————-

Exhalation
By Narendra Patil

‘Merely an exhalation’
Circumstances
have slapped down a suit
on the burning thoughts
in my mind!
They’ve put all burning minds
In custody.
Incarcerated
all gardens of dreams.
But how long can this bird
remain in this dungeon
whose very walls tremble
with his every exhalation?

(Translated by Shanta Gokhale)

———————————————————-

To Dear Aana
By Suresh Kadam

The sunset does not bury our sorrows,
nor does sunrise bring new hopes.
Everything continues, relentlessly.
Society, bound by her rituals of ages,
chews up chunks of human flesh
in blind fury:
the horse she rides
bleeds and foams at the mouth:
she holds the reins
of an ancient system;
her predator’s ears
listen for the twittering of birds;
in the orthodoxy of her world
passion and intensity are ridiculed.
Therefore, dear Aana,
you ought not to have cherished expectations
of a lingering kiss in the long night.

(Translated by Vilas Sarang)
———————————————————-

Habit
By FM Shinde

Once you’re used to it
you never afterwards
feel anything;
your blood nevermore
congeals
nor flows
for wet mud has been slapped
over all your bones.
Once you’re used to it
even the sorrow
that visits you
sometimes, in dreams,
melts away, embarrassed.
Habit isn’t used to breaking out
in feelings.

(Translated by Priya Adarkar)
———————————————————-
 
This Country is Broken
By Bapurao Jagtap

This country is broken into a thousand pieces;
its cities, its religion, its castes,
its people, and even the minds of the people
– all are broken, fragmented.
In this country, each day burns
scorching each moment of our lives.
We bear it all, and stand solid as hills
in this our life
that we do not accept.
Brother, our screams are only an attempt
to write the chronicle of this country
– this naked country
with its heartless religion.
The people here rejoice in their black laws
and deny that we were ever born.
Let us go to some country, brother,
Where, while you live, you will have
a roof above your head,
and where, when you die, there will at least be
a cemetery to receive you.

(Translated by Vilas Sarang)
———————————————————-

Light Melted in Darkness
By Meena Gajabhiye

Day slants, narrows down
And then I melt
in the empty space of darkness.
Though I am severed in two
no one cares.
Their leafless bough
never blossoms!
Although they strike root
seeped in my blood
I am entangled in python-coils
for ages.
Their venomous hiss
turns my day into night.
And when I reach out for a sunray
it recedes far away
like the end of a dream
when the eyelid is opened.

(Translated by Charudatta Bhagwat)
———————————————————-

How?
By Bhau Panchbhai
 
How do we taste milk in this town
where trees are planted of venom?
Enemies invite nothing but enmity
How can we share a drink of friendship?
How can I know this town as my own
where workmen are slaughtered daily?
How do I burn to light the path
at this turn
where hutments are set on fire?
They all partake of fruits of faithlessness
How am I to join such company?
Change your cradle if you would
How do I twist the shape of a newborn babe?
I see the clash of prisoners
Trained in schools of warfare
They die, how am I to survive here?
 
(Translated by Charudatta Bhagwat)
———————————————————-

White Paper
By Sharankumar Limbale

I do not ask
for the sun and moon your sky
your farm, your land,
your high houses or your mansions
I do not ask for gods or rituals,
castes or sects
Or even for your mother, sisters, daughters
I ask for
my rights as a man.
Each breath from my lungs
sets off a violent trembling
in your texts and traditions
your hells and heavens
fearing pollution.
Your arms leapt together
To bring to ruin our dwelling places.
You’ll beat me, break me,
loot and burn my habitation
But my friends!
How will you tear down my words
planted like a sun in the east?
My rights: contagious caste riots
festering city by city, village by village,
man by man
For that’s what my rights are –
Sealed off, outcast, road-blocked, exiled.
I want my rights, give me my rights.
Will you deny this incendiary state of things?
I’ll uproot the scriptures like railway tracks.
Burn like a city bus your lawless laws
My friends!
My rights are rising like the sun.
Will you deny this sunrise?

(Translated by Priya Adarkar)

(Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature, Arjun Dangle (Ed.), Orient Longman Limited, 1992.)

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2007, Anniversary Issue (14th), Year 14    No.125, India at 60 Free Spaces, Voices

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