...here in delhi on my way to chitrakoot for the third time in 5months...this boondock village in central india on the border of mp n up. this ngo - vanangana's been working there for 19years now on dalit and women's rights. and they got this hi8 video camera from witness.org in recognition of their excellent work...that's where i come in - teaching 6 field-level workers how to use this camera...and that too in hindi!!
...but with just 6-8 hours of electricity a day, i never was convinced about video being the medium to be pursuing. but then who are we to be denying them this "sexy new technology"??! but for me, its been fun, challenging, exasperating (how do you explain perpective in hindi, among other things), a huge learning (my hindi remains embarassing - lugaee (gharwali) instead of ludaiya (gud ke ladoo)!!)...so much entertainment for the natives!!
what boggled the mind was how far from my reality this place is...a few hundred kilometers from the city but lightyears away in mindspace. this is phoolan devi territory where gangsters greet you with guns even before the camera is pulled out. kbc? never heard of it forget seeing it!!
hopefully, by the end of this week they should be able to choose good from bad, log and transcribe what they've shot...so let's see! more when i'm back!
5 comments:
yay!! you becoming blogger! i'm happy :)
try getting a peep into the lovely cave...with waterfalls inside it...evidently believed to be the place where Ram/Sita etc happened a long time ago. The cave is bloody exciting...and if you are lucky you can even find a nice pair of 'Khadaoon' (the wooden shoes Ram wore, ha!) for yourself... masti!
persective is drishtikone, ajay...njoi the rustic holiday as u teach them...does this ngo have internet...since ur blogging from there!!!!
hey so i did go to this cave - gupt godavari it is called...a perfectly shaped yoni which leads to the source of the river godavari...complete with rippling waters! ram kund lakshman kund sita's something...quite a threesome it must have been ;)
but the aggressive babas break the flights of fantasy err fancy with their loud persistant invitations to ten rupee darshans.
sundara!
no not dristikon...perpective as in the imaginary disappearing point suggesting depth when viewing anything in 2d.
..and no, this ngo don't got internet, in fact didn't find a single cyber cafe in chitrakoot. though, our mobiles wokred this time round!! so much for pragati!
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