The allure of intangible cultural heritage is a siren’s song that transcends borders, beckoning the dedicated and curious to dive deep into the currents of history and tradition. A little over a decade ago, I found myself irresistibly drawn into its fold in Paris, with the sonorous notes of Bengali language echoing in my ears, a gift from my esteemed mentor at INALCO, National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations, Paris, Philippe Benoît who wanted me to interpret the songs of Patuas for the Festival de l’Imaginaire by Maison des Cultures de Monde, Paris. The journey began with the Chitrakars of Bengal, India, whose scroll paintings spoke of narratives passed down through generations. My father, whose life revolved around the preservation of Bengali folk arts, lit the torch of this exploration.

France, where I’ve spent over seventeen years, presented a different tapestry of heritage. While the vibrancy of Indian culture beckoned from a distance, the melodies of French folk traditions were slowly fading away. While doing my diplôme supérieur at the Alliance Française du Bengale in 2005-06, my research on Lyon, a city renowned for its handloom culture, unveiled the melancholic tale of the extinct Canuts, the iconic handloom weavers. The Maison des Canuts stands as a silent testament to this lost craft. But not all is lost; tucked away in the alleys of Aix en Provence, a city I lived for more than two years, is the Oustau de Prouvènço, fiercely guarding the culture of La Provence.

France’s tumultuous past has muted its indigenous voices, creating a homogeneous soundscape. My naiveté as a young Indian lad, enamored by the French language, was shattered by the chilling accounts of the Bretons, whose native tongue was suppressed in their own land. However, like the phoenix, France is re-emerging, with regions now celebrating their unique cultural identities. The tides are turning; France is hearkening back to its roots.

My adopted homeland is seeing a resurgence in its regional cultural heritage, as local governments invest in cultural projects, and residents take pride in showcasing their native customs. At this juncture, « Ajob Karkhana, Song of the Soul, » a Bangladeshi film directed by Shabnam Ferdousi and produced by Samia Zaman, has its festival screening in Paris. As I watched the film, memories flooded back – memories of my father, of Calcutta’s Gurusaday Museum, and of the arts I so ardently practiced yet left behind.

Join me in this ensuing dialogue with the film’s producer, Samia Zaman, as we delve into the intricacies of preserving our shared global heritage. This isn’t a review or criticism, but an invitation to understand the challenges faced in holding onto our past while navigating the currents of the present. Dive in, and as the French say, « Bonne lecture! »

From left: Director Shabnam Ferdousi, Poet and Lyricist Helal Hafiz and Producer Samia Zaman

Writtwik: What inspired you to create Ajob Karkhana, a film focused on preserving the folk music of Bangladesh?

Samia: The idea of the film came from a television show I was producing for Ekattor Television of Bangladesh, where I was the editor as well as the CEO. Shabnam Ferdousi created and directed this show which contained the seed of this film.

A popular pop singer was taken to a village setting; he interacted with the local singers and was the presenter of the show. We noticed the confidence of the local singers. They were in their elements, sure of their craft and sure of their relationship to their land, their surroundings.

In comparison, our popular musician seemed unsure, out of place and in a bit of awe of the singers who are completely unknown in the urban sophisticated Dhaka. Shabnam got this epiphany and started on writing up the idea. When she approached me about it, I immediately got on board. I encouraged her to finish the first draft of the script and applied for a grant from the Bangladesh Government to produce the film, which we received in time. I was already committed to work to preserve various cultural elements of Bangladesh though my TV commissions.

The original TV show later got a new incarnation where the urban presenter role was dropped, as we discovered the musicians are quite capable of telling their own stories. On the other hand, I am very aware of the rapid changes that are taking place in Bangladesh. People are resilient and flexible, resulting in being open to many changes in their lives. Some are beyond our powers like the forces of globalisation and the weight of the colonial history. Anyway, change is inevitable. So I was convinced of the philosophy of the film, that we are intrinsically connected to our land, heritage, and history. At the same time documentation of these transient, disappearing and irrevocably changing art forms seemed urgent and necessary. Music, especially folk music is intrinsic to the sense of Bengaleeness I think. The journey and the place of music in present day Bangladesh has many socio-political layers. All the above and the strength and uniqueness of the storyline, which I was already privy to, made me undertake this, which later proved to be a formidably challenging production.

Writtwik: Could you share your main message or intention behind this docu-fiction film?

Samia: Let me clarify first, the film is not a docu-fiction. This film has many real characters; primarily the folk singers; the film itself is a work of fiction though. 

Message is a word I struggle with. I don’t know the film is trying to convey any fully formed message. The impossibility of traversing the same path twice may be. Or how we are all looking for that nostalgic past, the life we leave behind when we fit our selves to the new, shiny, modern life? I think the film will speak to the individual audience according to their own sensibility and history. In this shifting landscape of life, the folk musicians seemed most anchored and sure of themselves and their art.

In the middle of this Ajob Karkhana of life; they have found their place. They are in touch with their inner being, the true self. When the elderly singer Helim Bayati says, his feet keep rhythm even when he sleeps; he himself recognises that he may have gone towards some pure music body and soul. The main protagonist will probably try and find a music true to himself by the end of the film; and live a more authentic life. Authentic, mindful these kinds of new age speak, seem to come naturally to our philosopher-musicians who practice folk and embody literally thousands of year-old connection to their surroundings and liveliood. 

Writtwik: In a world increasingly influenced by global culture, how do you see the importance of preserving traditional and folk cultures?

Samia: I may have already partially answered this. We need to be clear what we mean by global culture. Rather, which elements of global culture we are talking about. Beatles; Michale Jackson, Beyoncé? The behemoth of Hollywood and now Bollywood too? K-drama? The way we speak in English as Lingua franca and increasingly encouraged or pressured to even think in Anglo-Saxon terms or some other dominant cultural economic force? What is the political economy of this global culture who are the producers and who are the consumers? Was Ravi Shankar a symbol of Global culture or did he eventually was consumed by the West and eventually became a curiosity item?

In the long term, can a consumer influence a producer? I think; when we start to analyse these questions; the importance and gravity of the task, of trying to preserve cultural practices in their original form as well as documenting the evolution and inevitable changes become paramount. Also, this cannot be an anthropological exercise. The practitioners need to be part of the story telling and the documentation project. Who is telling whose story and for whom? None of us are free if these dichotomies and inconsistencies but an honest effort is a must, Role of traditional and folk is yet another discussion altogether. There’s a class aspect to it maybe. In Bangla music one could argue traditional music has been fossilised while the folk is now being repackaged to the extent it will be unrecognisable. 

Writtwik: Can you elaborate on the concept of intangible cultural heritage and its significance in your film?

Samia: Apart from the obvious ones like talking about various music forms; the film touches on references many other ‘endangered’ forms too. By the way, in Ajob Karkhana; we managed to touch on only a few music forms of current day Bangladesh. Lalon is a linchpin of this film; and not only his music rather his philosophy; so he had to be there. But we could not accommodate a larger-than-life Hason Raja, who deserves a film himself, women group, and individual performers like Dhamail, and literally hundreds of music forms still existing in Bangladesh. But quite apart from folk music, the film talks about poetry; how quotable and immensely popular lines of Jibanananda is completely unknown to the new young TV assistant producer. Another layer of poetry documentation took place in this film! We had the amazing opportunity of using several Helal Hafiz poems.

Writtwik: Regarding the film’s marketability and business development, how do you plan to reach a wider audience and ensure its success through distribution channels?

That is a challenge facing us. And I suppose many independent films, the marketing plans for Bangladesh is market specific. We hardly get revenues back through hall ticket sale » multiple reasons – screen number gone down; single screen cinemas throughout the country either shutting down or only show ‘big’ films. We try get sponsorship in various forms. It will depend on a successful partnership. Next step selling to OTT (Over the Top) platforms and television. Internationally, this is an independent film from Bangladesh. So, our first target audience will be worldwide Bangla speaking audience and the distribution targeting this segment of the audience is still quite patchy.

Regardless of that, a kind of informal distribution network of Bangla films is spreading, and we hope to be able to use that existing and, in some places, burgeoning distribution network to reach worldwide Bangla speaking audiences. In the early days of worldwide Hindi film distribution, it was a model; nowadays, Hindi films and films from the South are regularly getting worldwide release. I am not talking here about the blockbusters like Jawan. Much smaller films are regularly getting release.

UK and US naturally have more of this network, but this is happening in other places too. Bangla films are just beginning to have regular releases. Few boutique distributors are coming ahead. I believe we shall have a strong diaspora targeted release next year. 

Writtwik: Do you believe that the responsibility of supporting cinema that focuses on preserving cultural heritage lies with the state, the private sector, or both? Why?

Samia: Both. State has a big responsibility no doubt, and if there is a stated intention and purpose, they can be a great force. But private sector must be equally effective and participate in this. Sometimes, the cultural heritage in question may or may not fit government agenda, in those cases private money is vital. But even in ordinary cases, private public partnership, and separately vigorous support and funding is necessary to ensure viable choice, distribution and diversity of subject matters and personnel. I shall include public or crowdfunding here too. 

Writtwik: You have been a path breaking journalist, so as a journalist who has challenged the conventional narrative, how difficult is it to speak truth to power to a conflict ridden West, especially coming from a region like Bangladesh?

Samia: It is not difficult only it is almost impossible. West has its own narrative and often cannot hear or see other that what they perceive. An inevitable outcome of the colonial legacy is a substantial number of people from our regions, and many of them are in the cultural sectors as part of the privileged intelligentsia are Western educated or at least follow a Western curriculum. As a result, we also see ourselves through an eye which is not entirely ours. It’s a dilemma. Purity of point of view is impossible, almost difficult for the colonised. Every region (not necessarily nation state) has its own reality and history. We need to reconcile those within us, and only then we can effectively communicate with others. 

Writtwik: What parallels or differences do you see between your work as a journalist and your role as a film producer in shaping perceptions and narratives?

Samia: There’s lot of similarity. One must be focused in the middle of cacophony of the production process. I have done a lot of highly charged live television. Film making is not much different. Film has more longevity I suppose. With super-abundance of visual material around us, it may not seem so always. Shaping perception and narrative is a huge task, and news sometimes can be remarkably effective in that too. Can film, do it? I believe it can, but the changes need to take place on the greater society, and many factors are needed to make change happen. Film is but a small part of it. 

Ajob Karkhana, Song of the Soul, Bangladesh

A film by Shabnam Ferdousi

Produced by Samia Zaman

Festival Ganges sur Seine, Paris

GANGE SUR SEINE festival de cinéma indien (lelincoln.com)

A virtual film « adda », a chat, that took place a couple of years ago via email with two of my favourite human beings: Anuraadha Tewari and Amrit Gangar

« Cinema is dead ! », this is what the whatsapp status of a Calcutta based film maker reads. I am sometimes terrified to such an unabashed admission. Eventhough I am not a serious stakeholder of cinema, five years ago, I felt the need to understand from within the mind of a film maker. How do they think? How do they write? How do they remain focused? how do they negotiate? Can they be unbiased? I had all sorts of stupid questions popping up from here and there. Unanswered, most of my questions were, therefore, I preferred to focus on defining the trendlines and following the trajectories of India’s « world cinema ». It was pretentious and I was wrong. I should have, instead, tried to create a balance between the thought process of a Cinéaste and how do they want to pave the way for new ideals with an effective outcome. Better late than never!

I was too much involved in understanding film finance, film economy, coproduction mechanisms, cultural diplomacy, I mean, all sorts of big words which could give impetus to the perspectives of Indian cinema and make it smarter than ever in the world. Or, the large part of the real stakeholders of cinema back home were stuck in fixed and outdated ideologies! Perhaps, hackneyed. « Noone reads books these days and, in fact, we lack good books on cinema », very often this is what I get to hear from the film veterans of India. And that is why I always feel the necessity to document what they have to say about world cinema in general and Indian cinema in particular. I must connect.

When morality is at issue, art loses it autonomy, this is what the contemporary ethical thinking shows us today. How are the questions of the good and the just trying to be formulated in a new way at a time when we can no longer resort to immutable and transcendent moral values? Is Cinema really dead? I don’t think so. Even if I am trying not to intellectualise this write-up, I must refer to what Sartre had said in the middle of the 20th century in his book « L’Existentialisme est un humanisme », « No general morality can tell us what to do: there is no sign in the world. »

We are either condemned or blessed to invent our existence through moving images and so the values ​​we wish to follow. The term ethics, which is largely missing from the cultural discourse in India, is distinguished from that of morality in the sense that morality refers more to a structure made up of norms whereas ethics implies a questioning on the norm itself.

Ethics questions the foundations of these norms and at the same time confronts the absence of immutable moral criteria. If the contemporary world of Indian cinema needs to think of an ethic, it is precisely confronted with a vacuum from the point of view of moral value.

How can we be accountable for our actions when we can no longer content ourselves with showing adherence to a superior body that knows what to do in our place? We resist. We look for a greater aesthetic justice.

Therefore, I thought of documenting the thought process of Amrit, Filmosopher and the Creator of the concept « Cinema of Prayōga » who I met couple of years ago in Paris and of Anuraadha, accomplished screenwriter, my flatmate in Cannes during the festival which got over a couple of weeks back. She tells us about the wheels of Dharma, Yin and Yang which are probably transforming the contemporary film thinking in India.

Writtwik : Can you tell us something about your vision regarding the Indian cinema ?

Amrit : With its massive size in number both in terms of films produced and the number of people employed as also the investment made year after year, the Indian cinema to me is a beautiful multi-legged octopus. Deeply and continually drawing from the Indian epics and the Natya Shastra, the ancient text on performing arts and aesthetics, it, unlike in the West, defies genrefication, the cut-and-dried categorization. It seamlessly mixes rasas, the exalted sentiments or juices of tastes that counter the Western aesthetics of the genre, including cinematography.

As the Natyashastra broadly defines, Rasa is produced from a combination of Determinants (vibhāva), Consequents (anubhāva) and Transitory States (vyabhichāribhāva). It is indeed a complex system of aesthetic experience that India has developed over centuries and I would personally like to integrate this experience with the film theory, film studies for enrichment. And there are so many philosophical, semi- or para-philosophical thoughts and concepts that could be ploughed back into film scholarship and historical perception, maybe beyond the so-called ‘rationalism’.  This approach would also lead us to an embracement of polyphonic and non-hierarchical reception of Indian cinema.

Writtwik : Evolution of world cinema in general and specifically the evolution of Indian cinema, where are we heading to?

Anuraadha : I think for starters the two are like galaxies, moving away at a very rapid pace from each other! Having said that, I think the mandate of World Cinema in general and Indian Cinema in particular are poles apart. While the former is dedicated to the Art of Storytelling and evolving and pushing boundaries with each successive year, Indian Cinema is designed and expected to fill up emoty lives with hope, make the struggle of the underdog look worthwhile, to sell dreams and aspirations to a third world nation. Its mandate is far away from Art. Of course, its focus is also the commercial, but frankly that was the mood at Cannes as well. Not one Buyer at the Producers’ Network spoke of the Art House or Arty kind of Cinema. Everyone wanted that which sells, that which will get the audience in. India simply has slightly distinct reasons for the audience to be drawn in, for Cinema to sell. The principles of the business are, the same. It’s all a high-stake business first.

Writtwik : Can you tell us something about your experience at the festival?  What are the Cannes take aways?

Anuraadha: This was my first visit to Cannes as well as the festival, though Ive been to France many times. It was really a mixed set of emotions. In some ways, it felt much smaller than I imagined. The famed Red Carpet for example was no bigger than say the ones they put at PVR Cinemas for regular Bollywood Premiers. Yet, scale apart, the sheer fact that you are mingling with the Best in Cinema from around the world is a heady feeling that very few other expreinces can rival. To be at a Master Class with Clint Eastwood or to exchange notes with Pedro Almodovar . . . it’s like a spiritual jouney . . . a Pilgrimage of Cinema as it were. The biggest take away, however, has been the nurturing, maternal energy of the festival. I think, Cannes is Feminine. It encourages you, exhalts you, lets you discover and yet supports in small, amazing ways . . . almost whispering in your ears . . . “Go make a Good Film! Go!!!” I think, that is most moving thing about this experience.

Writtwik : What is « Cinemas of Prayoga » and are they different from Genre films? Are « Cinemas of Prayoga », transgressive in nature?  (The question is perhaps stupid! please excuse!)

Amrit« Cinema of Prayōga » is a conceptual framework that locates the history of experimental film in India within an ancient pre-modern tradition of innovation, of prayōga. Cinema of Prayōga is a theory of filmic practice, which challenges the dominant forms of filmic expression in contemporary India, including the all-pervading contemporary Bollywood or the social realism of Indian New Wave.

« Cinema of Prayōga » celebrates a cinematographic idiom that is deeply located in the polyphony of Indian philosophy and cultural imagination. It attempts to reconfigure the « generally » accepted notion of the experimental and the avant-garde in Indian cinema by conjuring the term ‘Prayōga’ from Indian philosophical thought. Etymologically, the term prayōga in Sanskrit refers to a theory of practice that emphasizes the potential of any form of contemplation – ritualistic, poetic, mystic, aesthetic, magical, mythical, physical, or alchemical. In cinema, it is a practice of filmic interrogation that is devised as a quest toward a continuing process in time and space.

No, « Cinema of Prayōga » is not transgressive in nature in its literal or whatever sense, it has no fascination to break rules as the word would obviously claim on the contrary Cinema of Prayoga would aim at deepening and intensifying the aesthetic-spiritual experience through cinematography by evoking a temporal anubhooti, a deeper experience. It would treat cinematography as a temporal art rather than a visual, and this is significant, as it inherently gets closer to kāvya (poesy) or samgeet (music), their temporal and experiential abstraction, freeing itself from being representational.

In its filmosophical essence, « Cinema of Prayōga » avoids employment of the Western terms such as experiment, genre or avant-garde. Avant-garde is at its roots, a military term, no matter it has been part of art vocabulary all over the world and for a long time now, the idea of ‘genre’ seems to be departmetmental-storish, pigeon-holing. 

Writtwik : As the ideas of pluralism are being challenged by rising populism and xenophobia, how do you see the concept of « Desh » (Nation)?

Amrit : History keeps unclothing the truth, turning it naked all the time, peeling off its skin, and throwing it up right in our face. The Mantra of Multiculturalism that the West had begun to chant in the 1970s and later was embedded, I am afraid, in skepticism and selfishness. They, then needed, labor, and cheaper labor from the East, or maybe there was a sense of cleansing the guilt of colonizing many counties of the East, and as the generations passed, from the first to the third, uncomfortable truth kept unraveling itself, the economic and racial realities started popping up their heads. It kept becoming an uneasy situation with the blooming diasporas and deeper economic and racial contradictions dancing their sporadic dreadful dance!

The polyphonic voices started to become uniphonic, judgmental, racial and intolerantly nationalistic on the octave of history. This octave is not always upward moving, it has its ups and downs, while chasing the utopia of equilibrium. We are all in search of this utopia to counter xenophobia, which history has witnessed over centuries, through rising populism and existential angst. It is an ongoing battle between the good and the evil through ‘samaya’, time.

What is interesting is the process that history undergoes through human interventions, and the way it keeps creating power-centres, while at the same time, making humanity more and more fragile, the search for ‘détente’ is a sign of insecurity and the fear of collective annihilation. On the wobbling project of ‘multi-culturalism’ was foisted the so-called project of ‘globalization’, a fake, trade-globalization that has not been able to unify the world or tempering its intolerance. Why have you to ask me this question of ‘rising populism and xenophobia’ in this age of globalization? The question per se suspects the idea of globalization as it is, or contradicts it.

I think the Classical Globalization, if I may call it so, was more culturally healthy, I am referring to knowledge exchange and human movements and not ignoring the facts of oppression and persecutions. The continental-sized India with her polyphonic voices of religion and language had always kept the doors of her house open, where many philosophers and artists (including film makers) would come, settle and contribute their skills and visions. And here perhaps the emotively embedded notion or concept of ‘Desh’ becomes crucial. Even today, if a migrant from a village now settled in the metropolis of Mumbai, while going to his native place or village would say that he is going to his ‘desh’. Desh would also mean ‘nation’, e.g. Bharatdesh or even Bangladesh. ‘Desh’ or ‘Des’ as a micro-term includes the ‘micro’, imagine, a ‘village’ wombing a « nation »! It is so inclusive.

Desh or Des is an interesting notional or emotional term that most Indians largely from villages often use. In this sense, the idea of ‘rashtra’ (nation and therefore nationalism) is perhaps an imposition, maybe an import from the West. I think, our fellow-villagers were or are more progressive and modern in their perception of humanity and the world at large. India is a great federation of the smaller units called ‘desh’ and that’s her strength – in her polyphony, her pluralism, her heterogeneity ; she is obviously not a single monolith, and yet wields a strength of her own in nouising myriad and multiple views…

And no wonder we keep hearing this song from a remote Rajasthani village : Kesariya balam / Padharo mhare des – it acquires a new meaning in our times of ‘globalization; this ‘des’, as a country, a rashtra, where, in fact, are many rashtras, many des or desh.

In Sanskrit language, the word ‘Desh’ has some interesting connotations too, e.g. it also means ‘atithi’, a guest who comes to your home without any prior appointment or date (tithi) and he is still most welcome because he is not only your guest but god, as the saying goes, « Atithi devo bhava »: This is a traditional Indian ethos. Atithi is also a foreigner, a desh-atithi. Desh is a region, province or a country as a whole. I think, in its deeper essence, it obliterates the notion of a nation in its narrow nationalistic sense.

Anuraadha : Well, if you’re asking me from a Political perspective then the concept of a Nation is a necessary evil. The Human Mind understands order through segregation and needs a sense of belonging to feel safe. A Nation gives you all that and more. From the perspective of Cinema, it can be a boon and a bane. There are Films bind the Nation intangibly as a whole and give you that indescribable feeling of being One in this strange way and then there are times when a National Identity and its collective sensibility can be restrictive and a pejorative when represented outside . . . like the term ‘Indian Cinema’ on a global platform often is.

Writtwik : As a film professional, do you think the world of cinema both in India and in France or in Europe is equipped to deal with multiple systems of knowledge in order to reinvigorate the idea of pluralism in an era of post truth? What can India bring to the global debate on a world without borders? 

Anuraadha : I am not sure what exactly you are implying with the first part of your question. Of what I understand, in India, ‘truth’ is a multi-angled phenomenon, a bit like ‘Rashomon’, but it’s also embraced in its plurality. I think the European mindset while not accepting of multiple truths isnt exactly honest about the chosen version! I think, that reflects in the both the Cinemas at multiple levels.

On the global debate on a world without borders, I think, India is virtually the pioneer of this thought since ancient times! We have been a Nation despite principalities and kingdoms for the longest time. We continue being a Nation despite the overwhelming diversity of culture in all its forms and nuances. I think the very existence of the Indian Polity. Polity proves that it’s possible to be connected despite inherent and intense differences and that borders are merely political necessities and forms of governance . . . . there is a way to feel the unity. Indian Cinema does a stupendous job of giving us that feeling every once in a while. Art notwithstanding.

Amrit : The present globalization has made the monster of market more monstrous and that is swallowing all creative, independent, intrepid voices though it creates an illusion of democracy and universal empowerment. it is not beyond suspicion as new monopolistic powers tend to control our world.

It has given birth to big and bigger fish that keeps gulping all the smaller fish. In India, we see the disappearance of those charmingly raw B and C grade films, those small producers have been pushed out of the scene, and technology has not made the so-called mainstream film making cheaper, it is all in the neo-capitalistic game, which has cleverly formulated its own norms for the rich and the powerful.

Films with massive publicity budgets can capture the maximum multiplex screens, not allowing the smaller fishes to swim in those waters. It is a new territorialism that has been created in this age of illusionary globalism. Cinema of Prayoga and its practitioners are essentially makers of antithesis to the monster of marketism.

With her historic intellectual-philosophical traditions France, and India, with her, emotional-philosophical historicity can resist these anti-art neo-capitalistic, even crony-capitalistic forces. And in this sense, I would believe that France and India are inherently equipped to deal with multiple systems of knowledge in order to reinvigorate the idea of pluralism in an era of post-truth as you said though I have a problem with this term ‘post-truth’ it will keep shifting as ‘post’ in ‘modernism’. Like modernism, truth is also in continuum as Indian mind would think.

The world without borders is perhaps not the same as Friedrich Engels had imagined within Marxiam philosophy, the withering away of the state. His imagination was beautiful as he said, “The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then ceases of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not « abolished », it withers away.”

The centuries-old Indian Maha Upanishad has this perception of the world : “Vasudhaiva kutumbakam”, which means the world is one family. Won’t you call it the modern ? With such ancient wisdom that is also practiced at large by her citizens, India can certainly contribute and bring about a global debate around the perception of the governable globe without walls, without boundaries, without divisions.

But personally, I would think these are necessary utopias, the utopias that we must keep chasing, we cannot live without this process… France, as a European, rational, intellectual ‘desh’ can create an environment that can groove into the Indian emotional-intellectual ethos with its tattva-jnana (knowledge of truth, of essence).

Writtwik : When morality is at issue, art loses it’s autonomy. What, according to you, should be the role of public intellectuals in the time of crisis? 

Anuraadha : Frankly, according to me, Art has been slowly losing its autonomy over the last few decades as Commerce has taken centrestage. Its the victory of the Masculine principle over the Feminine in this one. Im also a believer of the wheel of Dharma, in motion constantly, and that the Yin and Yang of the world will keep taking turns in different spheres. In Cinema it’s the Yang taking over for now but the Yin will also return sooner than later. Hence the job of a Public Intellectual in my opinion is to neither resist nor protest unduly but to simply keep the Art alive and thriving till it makes its come back on centre stage.

Amrit Gangar is a Mumbai-based poet, writer, curator, historian and cultural activist. He is curatorially engaged in the upcoming National Museum of Indian Cinema.

Anuraadha Tewari is Mumbai-based screenwriter and film maker with a degree in Mass Communication with a specialization in Film Direction. She has written films like « Jail », « Fashion » and « Heroine »

Reference:

L’Existentialisme est un humanisme, Paris, Editions Nagel, 1972, p.47