KOCHI: A woman’s search for chappal in the waterlogged compound of her house forms one of the elements of Jala Jeevitham: Sthree Sakshyangal, a documentary directed by Bindu Sajan. It might seem an uncanny idea to make a documentary out of, but for the people living in the coastal panchayats of Ernakulam often wreaked by tidal flooding, namely Vypeen, Kumbalangi and Enikkara, this event is as frequent as day and night.
Unlike her previous works, Bindu has employed the services of real women affiliated with the Kudumbashree Mission to bring the story to light. “I did not know anything about mobile phones at first, forget shooting a video with one,” says Masha, one of the women trained in the Community Video Volunteer project.
“After getting trained, I was asked to make a small reel that highlighted the tidal flooding in our areas. I thought it best to shoot a video about my search for the chappal.” A visual media professional with thirty years of experience, Bindhu wanted women like Masha to document their hardships. Tidal flooding affects over 20,000 houses in these panchayats.
The people who live in these coastal panchayats are helpless, and many can’t afford to shift to another location. Sadly, the issue does not come under the ambit of the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority. “We saw a sense of resilience in these women’s faces even in such adverse conditions,” says Bindu, who is currently based in Thiruvananthapuram. “I thought it would be best to get them to narrate their own story than another do it.”
‘Jala Jeevitham’ comprises 30 segments created by the women who took part in the Community Video Volunteer project. “It also features women narrating their video-creation experiences, about community theatre and mapping initiatives,” says Bindu.
She says the documentary, which does not consist of any fictional elements, is a joint venture by the M S Swaminathan Foundation, Equinoct and Tata Institute of Social Sciences. “I directed three documentaries in connection with Clean Alappuzha, a project helmed by IIT Mumbai and Alappuzha municipality. It was after seeing those films that Dr Manjula Sarathy of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences approached me to do this documentary,” says Bindu. “With this documentary, I firmly believe that more people will become aware of the issue of tidal flooding.”