THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Towards the north of Bihar, Hindi undergoes a very natural, rustic transformation. It teams up with Maithili, another regional variant, and forms Bajjikka, with a clear earthy twist and loads of warm homeliness.
Aajoor, with three shows in IFFK this year, claims to be the first movie in that language. Set in areas around Bihar’s Sitamarhi district, it reflects the aspirations of the locals to grow and learn. The entire story is weaved around Saloni, a motherless girl who battles societal scorn to go to school traversing long, patchy, albeit picturesque rural terrain, something her father, who sings for ‘launda naach’ performers (where the male dancer dresses up as a woman), insists she does without fail.
The girl’s role is juxtaposed to that of a bunch of privileged boys who aimlessly attend school and seem more interested in dabbling in social media, making reels and videos and personal accounts on the internet. The two aspirations find portrayal in the film inspired from real-life scenes in the remote regions which director Aaryan Chandra Prakash encountered as he returned from Delhi University after graduating in Humanities.
“I am not trained in filmmaking academically. My school was nature itself. I travelled across India post my graduation and found, in most places, the migrant population working in the unskilled sector is from Bihar. I went back home and found youngsters preparing more for such goals rather than getting education and finding a space to use their skills in the community they are born into,” he says. The result is high dropout rates from school and college, and migration to other states where they fit in as cheap, unskilled labour.
“I come from Sitamarhi, known to be the birth place of Goddess Sita. This place and adjoining villages are where Bajjikka is spoken. The dialect and its earthiness are what attracted me when I wanted to plan something for the community. The idea of a film was born,” Aaryan said.
Aaryan did not, however, want to go big with the production neither did he have the wherewithal to do it. Crowdfunding was the last resort, as was help from his friends, some of whom are National School of Drama alumni. Then, there were loans from well-wishers, and money pooled in by his family.
“We wanted to include sons and daughters of the soil rather than cast big names. Every person in the movie is from villages in and around Sitamarhi,” said the 27-year-old debutant director, who is at IFFK with two of his associates Avinash Chandra Prakash and Arpith Chhikara. He said the movie was conceived in 2018 and finished in 2024. It was first shown at the Kolkata International Film Festival where it bagged the best director award for Aaryan.
“It took five years as we had to first convince villagers about the need and texture of the movie that does not have the customary songs and dance. Bihar is known more for Bhojpuri movies with flimsy plots and scintillating dance and music sequences. So, when we began, villagers asked us about the songs and the dances that need to be included. Driving into them the idea that the movie will speak their true story, is a portrayal of the nature and its coexistence in their lives took us time,” he says.
The movie, garnering good reviews, is being seen with awe not just for its content with breathtaking visuals of rural Bihar but also for its manner of making. The story is doing rounds on social media, and Aaryan says there are people from across the world wanting to come and see the way he and his team have now set up a facility, Shrirampur Samvad Foundation, in the village to train children in skills they are good at and encourage them to use it in their own surroundings rather than move out in search of cheap jobs leaving education, home, and hearth.