Please share the link and circulate widely: My film on the 2002 Gujarat carnage - Final Solution - features a lot of children, not by any deliberate choice or design though. The children were witness to the most horrific and barbaric acts of violence. During any conversations, children were always a part of the milieu, never shielded by the parents or elder family members. The film itself begins and ends with Ijaz, a four and a half year old eyewitness. It was an accidental conversation that took place at the National School,Juhapura, where many children from nearby schools like Don Bosco were forced to join, thus ensuring their ghettoisation. It was while I was filming the sequence in a senior classroom that Ijaz strayed in, curious about the camera. Post-filming, he insisted that I take his photo as well, in his own classroom. He took me there, selected his photo pose - against the blackboard, perched atop a stool - and then just began to speak. Of all the filming I did in 2002, this one really hit me the most, as it was just so totally spontaneous. The unrehearsed, innocent words of this child shook me deeply. Later, another conversation in a Hindu home too shook me similarly. Preksha, playfully lurking around while I filmed with her father, suddenly started speaking of this CD. Had I seen it? She had, many times! So, I asked her to show it to me as well (this was the VHP propaganda film Ramsevak Amar Raho). As she shows the video and speaks about it, her father looks on benignly.... Watch these - this young boy and girl as also the older kids at National School - and ask yourself - is this the India you want? Is this what you want to leave behind for your own children? Rakesh Sharma
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 09:42:56 +0000