Cinematography: Sameer Mahajan Sound Recording & Design: Mohandas VP Editing Narayanan AV Production Manager: Kishore Sawanth Track Laying: Amrit Pritam( Fire Flies Post Sound) Sound Mixing: Pramod Thomas (Spectral Harmony) Produced by: Anab Jai Directed by: Vinayan Kodoth Duration : 38 min. Format : 35 mm (originally shot on Super 16) Ratio : 1 :1.66 Sound : Mono

Synopsis:

What does it mean to be part of a desperate crowd of seven million commuters to whom the suburban train journey between home and work place is a nightmare. Every day, year after year. In Mumabi (Bombay), a city of 15 millon people, life goes on as if nothing is out of place, even as nearly 4000 people are killed every year as they fall off trains, or are run over on the rail tracks. In its treatment, the film uses sound and visual juxtapositions, and an active montage to build up this surreal world. Moving between the dramatic and the reflective, the film juxtaposes this tragic situation with mainstream discourses on progress and military power. The film explores an urban dilema crucial to many other cities and countries.

The film evolved out of some of the most harrowing moments one spends moving about in Bombay. Over a time, those moments also came to signifywhat became a recurring image of the city. The constant movement, noise, crowds and the anxiety. And nothing typified it better than the trains and those unmistakable areas surrounding the suburban stations .Over the years that frightening quality of it diminished and its place was taken by a feeling of resignation.

I remember my first encounter with the trains. As an outsider to the city, I could only sit and wait for hours as train after after train dislodged its passengers and then took in even a more desperate crowd on its inward journey. And over the years as one became an inhabitant of the city, the only thing that became evident was that things would continue as it was. Every year one would remember the changes that were being ushered in only to sit back and soon realize that things could never be different.

That was the point at which I thought of a film. I didn't give much thought to how I would shoot it. I mean, the simple logistics of it. It only occurred to me that this was the most obvious subject hat I wanted to make a film on. I thought of short pieces based on fictional situations, which seemed to me worth a try on television. But the documentary idea was what stuck with me. The first proposal made to Public Service Broadcast Trust, which was then under Doordarshan, disappeared with no traces.

A few years later my interest in the film was renewed when I heard of the Jan Vrijman fund, Holland. I was quite taken aback and pleasantly surprised when the fund responded favourably to the initial proposal for a film, sanctioning a decent amount for scripting and research. In fact that put me into a kind of quandry. I had wanted the film to evolve from a basic treatment plan. But the fund demanded a very detailed script. Travelling between Ahmedabad (to where I had moved)and Mumbai, I tried to work out different strategies for the film, even as some basic research started throwing out some rather bizzare figures. Who hasn't heard of people dying on the tracks? But to later realize that nearly 4000 die every year on the tracks alone was a startling. Much later we came across this daily one inch column in Mid-Day that kept track of the numbers who died on the tracks. I guess no one pays much attention to it lost as it is between ads for automobiles and movies. The statistics grewand somewhere the need to communicate some of these facts started taking priority over some the human interest stories we thought would tie the film together. Since commuting did not end with the train, the road and the city traffic became an equally strong point of interest.

My own dilemma was with the script. The last thing I wanted was a film that kind of explained everything. I thought a written document could do it much better and more effectively. Interviews seemed to be only a rather convenient way of evading the commentary. The true spirit of cinema verite has been long dead I guess. Anyway what was the whole point of a film that explained everything, identified the crises of a modern city ,and then went on offer solutions by calling up on the various voices at the filmmakers command? Finally what emerged was a film that would play with sound and visuals to get its points across. I thought a rather first person kind of commentary would give a context to the film without making it sound pedantic.

It was only when the Jan Vrijmanfund wrote into say that they would be happy to fund part of the production did the whole logistics of the shoot begin to sink in. Permissions had to be obtained from both Central and Western Zones. For one particular days shoot, permissions from some nine authorities were involved. This was truly real low budget documentary filmmaking with Producer (thankfully my wife) and Director running around for every little thing.

With permissions coming in very slowly, the shoot dragged on for over a year. At the end of it we did not shoot too many days. But with the thought that the first schedule could be the last, we ended up overshooting a lot. We used the intervening period to edit the film offline. And it helped in making us more aware of the structure of the film. All this helped in the last schedule when our shooting ratio was a very healthy 1:6.

Shooting on Super 16 is probably a good option when one needs to blow up. But with the limited number of cameras available, it is a bit of a problem especially even if the shooting schedule itself being unplanned, and so dependent on permissions. Then there was the issue of lenses which were always a limitation with 16 mm, though after much searching we did get hold of one camera with the high range tele lens we were looking for.The camera itself looked suspect, we got hold of it at the last moment and went ahead with the shoot. When the results came we saw that multiple leakage of light had spoiled half the shots. But we needed that lens badly and the next time around wrapped the whole camera in black! This time the results were perfect!

In terms of sound we felt that some extra cost towards dolby sound would be justifiable but at the end we had to give that idea up.The costs involved were just getting too much. We settled down for mono sound. We cut down on the commentary significantly. It made the film more open but I think it works better that way.

The film has been screened at a couple of Film Festivals to a positive response which is most heartening for a filmmaker.

Vinayan Kodoth is a graduate of the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune with specialization in Film Direction . He has been working in Television and Film since 1992. He teaches in the faculty of Film & Video at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad