Inter-caste camaraderie, from the hills

For an Indian, the nebulous term ‘world cinema’ evokes fond memories of cinema from the distant Europe. However, at the ongoing International Film Festival of India (IFFI), cinemas of our immediate neighborhood — from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka — have got some much-deserved attention. Among them, one movie that garnered the greatest round of applause was Nepali director Min Bahadur Bham’s Kalo Pothi (The Black Hen).

The film is set in a Maoist-dominated region, Gamgadhi, of northern Nepal, at the height of the ‘People’s War’ in 2001. Centred on the lives of Prakash and Kiran, two primary school children from divergent castes, and their attachment to a hen, who they fondly name ‘Karishma’ (after the actress), it is reminiscent of the old children’s movie Kuk Doo Koo.

When Karishma, a gift for Prakash from his sister who has joined the Maoists, gets sold, the children’s journey through Maoist-inhabited jungles brings them a greater awareness of their backgrounds. Kiran’s brother-in-law has been abducted by Maoists and Prakash’s elder sister is an accomplice.

Prakash’s love for Karishma is not unlike Tahaan’s love for Birbal, a donkey, in Tahaan or Biniya’s love for an umbrella in The Blue Umbrella. However, The Black Hen, more than the hen, is about the friendship between the two children. While caste divides them, class unites. The biggest political statement the film makes is neither through the revolutionary songs sung by Maoists nor the paeans to the King the villagers are forced to sing. It is when Prakash and Kiran, having smeared themselves with blood to avoid being killed by the rebels, both go naked to take a dip in the pond. Beneath the veneer of the clothes that mark their castes, their souls are the same.

Speaking to The Hindu in Hindi after the screening of the movie the director, who hails from the Karnali region of northern Nepal, said it was a tale of his own childhood and his friendship with a lower-caste school friend. “It was really hard for me and for us to play together. We used to ask: why can’t we play? Why can’t we have food together? I started writing the story keeping that in mind,” the 31-year-old director said.

Speaking about his experience with Maoists, Bham said, “I had to quit my school. I had to leave my village and come to the city. Most of the children [as also shown in the movie] were joining Maoists.” He added that Guru Dutt and Satyajit Ray were the Indian filmmakers he took the greatest inspiration from.

When asked about the recently-passed Nepali Constitution and how it has impacted the lives of lower-caste children like Prakash (the film’s character), Bham said people from the hill areas, including those from his own region, were generally happy with the Constitution.