Dear Friends
While Ranjan's article has created a controversy of sorts (it's welcome by
us), and a debate is likely to start, here we send you what Subhankar meant
by 'Bhadaas! Dho!'
Cheers
Bhadaas! Dho!
the BYOFF team
**
*The Art of Bhaadas! Dho!*
* *
Subhankar Das
Have you ever Bhaadased in a crowded lift? Or been on a lift with someone
who has? Notice how everyone shifts their feet and look around uncomfortably
(including, presumably the person who did it) trying less to identify who
did it than to identify themselves as one of the people who did not do it.
Why are we so afraid of our natural functions and those of others?
Even armed with the knowledge that Bhaadas is universal, many people are
still unwilling to own up to it. I would even go so far as to say 'I
Bhaadas, therefore I exist'.
What actually people do when they sit on a toilet seat? The Dho coming
after... yes so very Indian.Ginsberg learnt it in India and washed his arse
slim the rest of his Hare Krishna holy life.
I was musing about all these sipping my black coffee and smoking as the sea
breeze washed the glitches of my brain clean in the Pink House when Bishu
the photographer came up with another story.
BYOFF had two tents for screening in the first year-- one was named Bhaadas
and the other Dho. Later some one realizing we are all made of blood, sweat,
bone, snot, shit and gas added -- Bhaadas Tarkovsky, Dho Fellini.
The spirit of these words are such that they change, shape up, change again.
So the words which are originally meant to be in Oriya does not remain so.
It transgresses in celebration. A celebration of sounds and it means Bhaadas
Hierarchy, Bhaadas Bureaucracy, Bhaadas Hassle... only the sand, the sea,
the G, the booze and cinema that matters where I lazed around talking,
sharing, tripping and watching films.
This Bhaadas in Orissa might be shocking for I-know-it-all intellectuals who
are afraid of their natural bodily functions and those of others to be free
and so do not understand the basic spirit of independent films. The only
natural thing that could happen happened in Puri, that is to have a festival
away from the oppressive atmosphere of bureaucratic control of big cities
and it's I-know-it-all intellectuals and where just about anybody
couldparticipate. It does not matter whether Digital Film making is
incorporating
shit to happen and even Jean-Luc 'Cinema' Godard had no answer whether the
future of cinema lies with the craft of digital filmmaking (Notre Musique).
My experience was different--the brilliance, the exuberance of the young
artists and the people make the spirit going of the great Bhaadas Dho and
that was all I was looking for--not some super intellectual I-know-it-all
dead meat.
So I fell in love with Bhaadas, the alternative spirit which keeps BYOFF
going year after year. If you can't Bhaadas very loud because you have a
bony spirit then shift and wiggle and contort yourself to try and find a
good angle for amplification. Nobody will shift their feet and look around
uncomfortably, that I can assure you of.
Subhankar Das is a poet, writer, and is associated with Graffiti magazine
and publication, an alternative publication in Bengali literature. He is
based in Calcutta.
He can be contacted in graffitidreaml...@yahoo.com
--
Visit http://www.byofilmfestival.com to know more about and register for the
BRING YOUR OWN FILM FESTIVAL, PURI 2006
Also visit the Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/byoffpuri to
post your thoughts, suggestions and of course communications with
fellow-filmmakers/enthusiasts to make BYOFF 2006 a grand success!
