Kerala: Pushpendra Singh’s ‘Laila Aur Satt Geeth’ is an allegory of Kashmir

KOCHI: Filmmaker Pushpendra Singh hails from a village bordering UP and Rajasthan that bears a poetic moniker — Sai(n)yaa. A name that people would find easy to connect with since it is the favourite loan word for Hindi lyricists who want to evoke the madness of love.
An FTII graduate, Singh had been making films for the past six years. His fourth ‘Laila aur satt geeth’ (The shepherdess and seven songs), an adaptation of a story by Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha, which premiered at the Berlinale was screened at the IFFK on Sunday.Detha’s story had a feudal setting, a village thakur who eyes a beautiful young bride, her weak-willed husband and a street-smart middleman, engaged by the thakur to woo the woman, who falls for her. It was a story with feminist theme and inner monologues that problematizes the issue of sexual consent.
“I wanted to make it more contemporary,” says Singh, who transposed the story to strife-torn Kashmir, weaving in the life of Gurjar-Bakarwals — a nomadic tribe of goat-herds.
Since he hailed from the community of Gujjars, he was aware of the plight of the Gurjar-Bakarwals, who share a common ancestry with the Gujjar tribe. In this tale, which takes the form of an allegory, Singh also weaves in a reference of Kashmiri mystic poet Lal Ded, who walked nudes, singing her vakh (verses). Singh’s Laila is a free-spirited woman who wanders in search of absolute freedom.
“In Kashmir I found that there is a new kind of feudalism, the security forces who act as feudal lords, then the local police and forest guards. The reports about the cow protection laws brought by the NDA governments and their impact on the community also influenced me,” says Singh. While Laila was played by Punjabi actor Navjot Randhawa, Singh drew most of the actors from the community of Bakarwals.
“I find this idea of acting problematic in India because it’s personality oriented. When I started working with marginalized people, I realized that they have gone through so much so that you can see that in their bodies. An actor can never reproduce that,” says Singh, who was trained as an actor. Like casting, the space where the film is set is also crucial for Singh, who spends several days soaking up the character of the space before he decides to set the camera rolling.
“I finish the first draft of the script and then spend my time in spaces where I want to shoot. So I look at many spaces and then zeroes in on one location. I find the idea of homocentric films problematic,” says Singh, who considers cinema a spiritual medium.