Tomorrow We Disappear

Close your eyes and imagine growing up surrounded by magicians, puppeteers and acrobats. That is exactly what the children living in Kathputli Colony are doing every day. They are taught acrobatics, to play musical instruments and how to perform in front of strangers. They know no fear of trying strange and unknown things. That is how the children of the 2800 families of street artistes have seen their parents earn their livelihood. They now have to perform a disappearing act. This time it is for real. Their little world is being razed to the ground to make way for a skyscraper. The people will vanish but so will their art. They are puppeteers, but this is one act in which they are unable to be anything more than mere puppets.Tomorrow We Disappear is a documentary that captures the life of these nomadic artistes and asks you to experience this culture before it disappears.  Directed by Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber they are now on the way to the TribecaFestival 2014. I asked the directors what made them take up this subject and more: Abhijit Bhaduri: What made you choose this subject? What parallels do you see in other parts of the world?Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber: We chose to cover Kathputli because we read about it in Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children,” actually: the magical ghetto that disappears and reappears all across the city — it was a beautiful metaphor for the ways in which slums spread and how the government futilely tries to keep them out of sight, out of mind. But to your point, what’s happening in Kathputli is clearly a modern phenomena. There is a lot of free flowing capital out there, and real estate is a relatively liquid investment. Major cities across the globe are competing to become the center of commerce and high culture and luxury. It doesn’t bode well for grassroots culture, which exists best on the periphery.Abhijit Bhaduri: What do you hope to achieve with the film?Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber: Great question. First and foremost, we wanted to tell a great story, to make a great film.But the film itself is ultimately an act of preservation. Regardless of whether Kathputli can hold on and stave off the re-development, the traditional arts are dying out in India. We really wanted to honor these cultural forms and the people who’ve mastered them. And frankly if the film can show what these amazing artists can do, and they receive new economic opportunities because of it, we’ll feel like we’ve done our jobs.Abhijit Bhaduri:Who are the characters that left an imprint on your psyche? Why?Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber: Well, we filmed a lot of artists in Kathputli, and we focused the plot on three who particularly resonated with us: Puran Bhat the Puppeteer, Rehman Shah the magician, and Maya Pawar the acrobat. I think Maya in particular left a huge impression. She’s young, beautiful, she was a finalist on India’s Got Talent, and now teaches many of the kids in the local school acrobatics. Many of the people in Kathputli feel the minute they leave the colony, the next generation will abandon their art and culture. But Maya, who actually is of that generation, says, “As long as we want to continue it, how can it ever die?” She’s got incredible dignity and resilience, and I feel really proud introducing her voice to a larger audience.Abhijit Bhaduri: Do you plan to figure out a way to rehabilitate at least a few of them?Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber: Our film is about performers, so our primary hope is that the film will reach people who want to hire these artists and give them more economic opportunities. That is the most sustainable means of helping them because “we perform, you pay us” is a means-and-exchange system to which they’re well accustomed.Outside of that, it’s really hard–hard, but not impossible– to come up with a global solution for helping the Kathputli Colony. There is a real schism in the colony between those who want to move to transit camps and eventually flats, and those are satisfied where they are because the architecture is amenable to the creation and preservation of their art. We are currently reluctant to come down on one side to the expense of the other. Really, we need to see how things play out in the coming days and months, and hopefully the film will attract people in New Delhi who are capable and of means to help these artists in their transition.————Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduriWatch the trailer of Tomorrow We Disappearhttp://youtu.be/WIKFceQisD8First written for my Times of India blog on 5 April 2014