Nagabharana, popularly known as Bharana, is not only one of those who steered the parallel cinema movement in Kannada in the 70s, but also one of the few to straddle mainstream and parallel cinema worlds simultaneously. Likewise, he is one of the few filmmakers, who tried to bridge the gap between mainstream and parallel cinema and promoted “bridge films”. From Grahana to Allama, he has made 36 films in his film career of 37 years. He is the recipient of nine National Awards, besides several State Awards. He is known for picking up diverse themes in his films — from Shishunala Sharifa (saint, philosopher and social reformer in Karnataka, Allama (12th Century mystic-saint) to romance Mysuru Mallige ( based on the poetry collection of KS Narasimhaswamy). He is the first President of Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy and provided a blue print for the development of cinema in Karnataka.
Born as Talakadu Srinivasaiah Nagabharana — TS Nagabharana is basically a product of amateur theatre. During his college days, he came under the influence of doyens such as Adya Rangacharya (Sri Ranga), BV Karnath, Chandrashekara Kambara and Girish Karnad. His performance on stage in Sangya Balya, Kattale Belaku, Jokumaraswamy, Oedipus, Sattavara Neralu, Hayavadana, Neegikonda Samsa are still remembered by connoisseurs of theatre. He is one of the founders of the theatre group —Benaka. Grahana, the debut film of Bharana, won the National Award as the Best Film on National Integration. Besides that Bharana shared the Best Screenplay Award with TS Ranga in 1980. In fact, Bharana is the only director in Kannada who received award for National Integration thrice in the country for Grahana, Santa Shishunala Sharifa and Kallarali Hoovagi .
Grahana (The Eclipse) was produced jointly by Kodalli Shivaram, D Venkatesh and D Rame Gowda with GK Govinda Rao, Anand Paricharan, Venkataramane Gowda, SN Rotti, BS Achar, Katte Ramachandra, Malathi Rao, Shobha Jyoti in the cast. This film is a critique of the caste system. The story is based on the Hebbaramma Festival celebrated in Ujjani village of Kunigal taluk in Tumkur district. The plot concerns an annual village ritual, where a small number of untouchables are selected to be Brahmins for a few days only, provided they mortify themselves throughout this period, often in an extremely cruel fashion, as a kind of purification ceremony. During one such ceremony, a person dies and his body cannot be buried by members of either caste. The village headman’s son Puttaswamy, calls the police, who remove the corpse. Puttaswamy then lives with the Dalits for a while. As this infringes the rules of the ritual and of caste behaviour, the headman commits suicide. In spite of these traumas, the rituals continue the coming year.
Navya poet Gopalakrishna Adiga clapped the boards for the first shot. Noted writer and critic, S Diwakar worked as the art director. Girish Kasaravalli, who was yet to join Film and Television Institute of India Pune, (FTII) worked as Assistant Director, while S Ramachandra, a known name in the parallel film world in Kannada cinema held camera for the debut venture of Bharana. TS Ranga and Bharana jointly wrote the screenplay.
Bharana was 23-years-old when he directed Grahana. Before this he assisted Karanth for Chomanadudi and Girish Karnad for Ondanondu Kaladalli. Vividly recalling the making of Grahana, Bharana says:
“Ujjani is the native place of Kodalli Shivaram. He was fascinated about the tradition of six dalits transforming as brahmins for nine days during the Jatra of Hebbaramma -- the village deity. Legend has it that Hebbaramma, a brahmin by caste, marries a dalit youth. As token of repentance, she makes all her six sons wear the sacred thread days before the festival. Those transformed dalits are referred as Devaraguddaru. They wear the sacred thread and shave their heads to convert themselves as brahmins. They will stay in the shrine of Hebbaramma and prepare their own food. Once the festivities are over, six dalits would remove their sacred thread and remain untouchables to touchable. The initial plan was to make a documentary on this unique ritual.
But those involved in the documentary forced us to make a full length feature film on the issue. Both Ranga and I decided to write the screen play. By the time producer Kodalli Shivaram spent all the money with him and expressed his helplessness to continue shooting. We returned Bengaluru with negatives shot so far. While watching the processed negative I was overpowered by a feeling of belongingness, as it was my debut venture.
It took me nine months to commence the shooting. Meanwhile, I assisted GV Iyer for Hamsageete . Then, D Venkatesh, brother of Kodalli Shivaram, came forward to finance Grahana. Major part of the film was shot in Honganuru village, where my grandfather has a big house, which is known as a 12-pillar house. He offered to take care of the basic needs besides offering permission to shoot in the house. P Raju and Mayannna took the responsibility of meeting the needs and allowing me to look after the creative part of the film. I can not forget S Ramachandra’s help in completing the film even now.
Interestingly, the shooting was progressing on the basis of the negatives available. It was a kind of a new experiment in structuring a film. It is a pattern used in theatre. My theatre background came in handy for me. We got the negatives processed and Stanley, an assistant of Bhaktavatsala started editing them. I learnt editing while working for Grahana.
In the absence of Stanley, it was Suresh Urs, who helped me to edit the film. We bought a splicer cutter machine for editing for ₹500. Suresh Urs and I experimented with the editing too. I did not have money to return to Bengaluru after paying the meagre amount to the cast and technicians. A lorry driver dropped me and Raju till Channapatna from Chamarajanagar. We did not have money to even buy a meal. We survived with the ( Prasadam served at Ambegalu Krishna temple in Channapatna. Without money to buy ticket to Bengaluru, we boarded a bus and planned to give the conductor Raju’s watch, if he asks for ticket. To our surprise, the conductor totally forgot us and we got off the bus at Sirsi circle and heaved a huge sigh of relief.
We got the film censored in 1979 and sent it to National Award for that year and bagged two awards. Mrinal Sen, who was on the jury said, “ Grahana is one of the best Indian cinemas I have seen so far and it is in fact a new experiment”. Words of Mrinal Sen relieved me from all the trauma I underwent in the process of making of the film.
As told to Muralidhara Khajane
This column chronicles filmmakers' first efforts
