When we say “old people” or “senior citizens” it is often a very dreary, lonely, and sad picture presented, or that is what we think of them. But there are many who happily re-live old memories and live fulfilling lives with positivity. Which is why artist Sharmila Aravind decided to make a positive film on people aged 85 to 100.
The seed of Active Voices - A Collection of Recollections was sown when Sharmila was talking with her 93-year-old grandmother one day. She has another grandmother who is 91.
“I was asking her about her life and I realised how little I knew about her and our children know even less about how they lived. Everything was so different then -- the modes of communication, transport, they got married by the time they were 10 sometimes. So I started off making a video of her recollections.
Then I decided I wanted to document this as a form of verbal history, which gives a fair understanding of how our country has changed over a span of 100 years,” says Sharmila, a visual artist and a documentary filmmaker based in Bengaluru.
While a new generation has emerged amidst us, there are many octogenarians, nonagenarians and centenarians with clear-cut voices, she stresses, who are a treasure trove of information. She spread word of her project through friends, and screened about 35 people in and around Bengaluru to finally zero in on 26 of them from diverse cultural backgrounds, age, and fields of work.
Freedom fighter Doreswamy (97), former Chief Justice of India M.N. Venkatachaliah (88), lexicographer G. Venkatasubbiah (104), astrophysicist B.V. Srikanthan (92), former Miranda House principal and D.Lit in Sanskrit, Rukmani Rajamani (86), homemaker Parvathamma (102), and two agriculturists are just some of the people she interviewed at length for the project.
“We tend to think that old people lose their memory. But I found a sizeable number of them who are much better than us!” she laughs. The focus of their talks was on people’s personal lives - their childhood, the education system, occupation, marriage, the Independence struggle, how they view society today, how they have adapted to the current times, and their take on the future. “You don’t really need ‘evidence’ to prove their memories. You are able to confirm their timelines, with most of them corroborating each other’s views,” says Sharmila speaking of the crucial memory issue.
While the 32-minute film is based on personal memories of people, it also records some of the significant events in history, including World War II.
“Some of them recollected living on a spoonful of rice a day during the hard times...” The recollections are interspersed with Sharmila’s poetry.
She partly funded the film herself, with the EST coming in from crowdfunding, family and friends who contributed as well. The film was selected for screening at the Delhi International Film Festival and was awarded for the best concept in the documentary section. It has also been screened at the Rajasthan Film Festival. “I am hoping to take it to other film festivals and to reach out to the Indian community abroad, before releasing it online,” says Sharmila.
What really hit Sharmila during the course of the film was the optimism of the people she spoke to. “We think old age is about loneliness...yes many of them have lost their children, their movements are restricted, they are dependent on others, they have no one to interact with. Yet, not one of them was pessimistic, despite all this. Many have picked up from where they left off and have moved on.”
The film, made over a period of one year, also brings into focus, the one common string which binds everyone – life itself, stresses Sharmila. “I realised that life treats every one the same - be it the agriculturist or the astrophysicist. They all had the same things to say.”
Active Voices will be screened at NGMA Bengaluru, on February 5, at 11 a.m. Entry is free, with seating on a first come first served basis.
