I just watched the film 'my caste' by Amudhan. The film as the name suggests begins with our first awareness of caste and explores accretion of experiences of caste over a lifetime. The film unfolds with many voices talking about their reality of caste. Visuals gently roll through scenes of domesticity; of women sweeping their front yards, setting fire to the dried leaves, combing hair and untangling knots, setting the earthen stove on fire from gathered twigs. As you listen, your eyes are rivetted as the film takes you through the alleys and brick walls into spaces and lives and livelihoods. Of men and women building our cities and villages, literally brick by brick.
A group of women labourers during their lunch break, eating from steel boxes, presumably previous day's rice kanji with a precious onion is all at once intimate and and a stark mirror to our privilege. It is a gentle and powerful film, an invitation to introspect. We are taken to little known villages of tamilnadu where people live and work and worship and die while also at every threshold having to deal with the pervasiveness of caste . While mainstream thetoric invisibilises, Amudhan's film takes a nuanced look into these important questions of caste that today's society and conscience needs to grapple with.
Indhu is a Bangalore based activist and researcher.
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