Highlighting a stark divide
Glaring contradiction
Intent on capturing the massive rift between the struggles of rural India and the indulgences of the elite, ‘Nero’s Guests’, a short documentary focusing on the issue of farmers’ suicides was recently screened at the British Library.
The documentary, which was shot by Deepa Bhatia, revolved around the research conducted by P Sainath.
‘Nero’s Guests’ tried to focus on the massive contradiction that exists between the rural and urban classes of our country. In the last 10 years, 2,00,000 Indian farmers have taken their own lives as a result of debt or other forms of financial distress. The documentary tried to shed light on this relatively ignored topic by speaking to families of farmers who were victims of suicide and trying to trace the reasons that drove these men to take such drastic measures.
One of the first families that was a part of the documentary was that of Shekhurao Dutta Tembare, a father of two who killed himself recently because he could not repay a mortgage on his property. His son, Vishnu, is now repeating his PUC, since his father’s suicide coincided with his board exams.
The documentary also mentioned K Vishweshwarao, a progressive farmer who had initially turned livid whenever one of his friends mentioned suicide; in 2004, driven by financial despair, he took his own life. One of the most distressing incidents features in ‘Nero’s Guests’, however, was the suicide of Krishna Kalamb, a poet and a farmer who hanged himself and left behind a poignant poem as his suicide note. The poem was read out by his daughter, Usha, who was unable to prevent her voice from breaking throughout.
The documentary provided certain statistics and examples of the glaring contradictions between the haves and have nots in our country. For example, the frames contrasted the ‘Fashion Week’ shows in Mumbai, featuring models wearing extravagant cotton gowns, and the lives of the farmers who grew this cotton an hour’s flight from the City — where suicide rates had reached upto six to eight deaths per day.
The documentary was followed by a discussion by B N Viswanath, an agricultural scientist and pioneer of terrace gardening in Bangalore, on the same subject.
