If there is one issue that’s raising a stinking in the city, it’s to do with garbage disposal and waste management. Just about everywhere you turn in the city there’s bound to be a mountain of garbage. It doesn’t help matters that the main ‘pollutants’ are often the educated citizens, the so-called socially-and civic-minded, the denizens who think nothing of throwing waste onto the roads. “What they don’t realise is that a plastic bag filled with household waste unceremoniously dumped on the road has the potential to set off a chain reaction that has no happy ending for man or the environment,” says Rajeev Ramachandran, the director of the thought-provoking new short film, Kuppa (The Garbage) .
It unfolds through the tale of a well-to-do family who set out for a shopping trip, taking with them a plastic bag of kitchen waste that they want to throw away. The moment the bag hits the ground, it sets off a series of events, coincidences rather, that eventually lead to a tragedy that rocks the core of the family.
But garbage disposal and waste management are not the only things that the short highlights. Interwoven into the 13-minute narrative are all manner of social issues and ills, right from avarice and greed to poverty, food scarcity, cleanliness, and food management. “I have attempted to make each dialogue, each scene in the movie symbolic,” says Rajeev, a graphic designer who was, until recently, working with an MNC in Technopark. He is also an active member of the Sasthra Sahithya Parishad.
“I have always been disturbed by the populace’s lackadaisical approach to garbage and wanted to tie that with my interest in filmmaking,” says Rajeev, who roped in several of his colleagues to act in the film and be part of its crew. “It’s a team effort,” he says. “I am trying to link the film to Thomas Isaac’s successful clean-up campaign, ‘Ente Nagaram, Sundara Nagaram,’ pioneered in my hometown, Alappuzha, and which will be rolled out in other cities in the state shortly,” says Rajeev.
