‘It is mind-boggling that local people are capable of protecting wildlife to this extent'
Rama Devadiga, an inhabitant of Yellapura, recalls a frightening story from his past: how he was attacked by a bear while cycling to a temple. 'I'd see bears often, and they were always harmless,' he explains in writer and poet Sourabha Rao's new documentary, Huliyappa. In this case, he says the bear's two cubs were sleeping on the path, and he did not see the mother approach him. 'It was when she gripped my cycle carrier, and I turned around that I realised she was there,' says Rama, whose head still bears the jagged scars of that encounter.
Rama's story was particularly poignant for Sourabha, the co-founder of multimedia production house, Owletter Creations, who could not help but notice how matter-of-factly Rama described this incident.
'He doesn't play the victim card or use the word trauma,' she says. This was someone who had 'knocked on the door of death' but managed to be casual and matter-of-fact about it. The stoic attitude, she says, is true of many local people who live in close contact with wildlife.
'There is a sense of dignity to their resilience and endurance that evokes a lot of respect,' she says, something that the film highlights too. 'These people do not glorify their tolerance and love for wildlife. There is no sloganeering or chest-thumping.'
Without romanticising the consequences of the co-existence of humans and animals, she still feels that 'it is mind-boggling that they are capable of protecting wildlife to this extent. I still can't wrap my head around it.'
According to her, local people do understand humans need to respect animals as it is their space and have been there for a longer time than people. 'They never use words or phrases that can be troublesome,' she says. Instead of saying things like 'dangerous' or 'beast,' while referring to these animals, they say that the animal took away cattle or a dog, adds Sourabha, who, as a writer herself, is fully aware that 'your thought informs your language and your language informs your thought.'
Worshipping predators
Huliyappa, which premiered at the Bangalore International Centre (BIC) on June 7, explores this co-existence of indigenous people and wildlife. Set in the lush green landscapes of Uttara Kannada, which is flanked by the Sahyadris, better known as the Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot and a UNESCO World Heritage site, the film is a testament to the natural beauty of the landscape as well as to the people, wildlife and cultural traditions it nurtures within it.
'I am very fond of the Malenadu region. It is an amazing biodiversity hotspot, and I have been visiting it for nearly 10 years,' explains Sourabha, who first began thinking about this intersection of people and wildlife around five years ago, while working with a couple of Bengaluru-based conservation organisations.
It was over a casual conversation with a friend from this region that the idea for Huliyappa came about. 'I was telling her how amazing it was that people worship predators,' she recalls. 'And she was like, ' Hey, we do this too. Huliyappa is one of our deities, and we worship him during Deepavali.' That is about it. There was no looking back for me,' says Sourabha, who would spend the next five years traversing through the region, talking to people.
'We went to some of the most remote villages you could find there, without cameras, just to establish trust,' she says, adding that she wanted to ensure that all the voices of different communities who lived in the region, including the Brahmins, Devadigas, Vokkaligas, Gowlis and Siddis would become part of the final film. 'There is a whole gamut of communities there, and we have spoken to them all.'
She also witnessed the actual worship of Huliyappa, something the film captures in all its glory, showcasing the pilgrimage of scores of people trudging through remote tree-flaked landscapes, coalescing at Huliyappa's shrine. 'The deified tiger of the human imagination,' as Sourabha puts it. This is followed by a complex ritual that includes washing the deity with water and then milk, smearing it with butter, garlanding it with flowers, offering it coconuts and performing aarti on it.
'The first Deepavali, I recorded things on my phone because this entire ceremony was visually striking and the energy infectious.' Experiencing this ceremony shifted something in her, reveals Sourabha. 'We see so much cynicism, rage and scepticism in urban lives and believe that the rational side of things must always overrule the rest of our being.'
She could not help but feel that these people, however, only seemed to worry about what they could do for their immediate environment. 'They don't want to change the world, like most of us , but instead, just wanted to take care of their backyard…what was all around them,' she says. 'Where humans meet wildlife and vice-versa, a faith system like Huliyappa can play a vital role in maintaining harmony, despite adversity and losses.'
Making a film
Sourabha and her team began shooting the film last year, self-funding the entire project because, 'after sitting with this story for five years, I realised that I couldn't wait any longer,' she says. 'We just decided to look at it as an investment.'
She also chose to make the film featuring people speaking in different dialects of Kannada with English subtitles, 'because the way Kannada helps you articulate a thought around an animal, a forest or a tree is very different from English.'
Additionally, for the the film to have a direct connection between the people and the audience, the team did not have a voiceover/narration, 'to avoid the imposition of our interpretations and inferences,' points out Sourabha, who ensured that a private screening was arranged for each and every person featured in the film. 'Before we premiered it for the world at large, we went to them. The film happened because of them.'
She describes the process of researching and making the film as 'a humbling experience that has eroded my cynicism.' Recounting how she was forced to often confront uncomfortable questions during her research, she says, 'It helped me discard my own arrogance and pre-conceived notions and made me fall in love with our planet. We have probed the entire universe, and this is the only thing that contains all of us.' Sourabha has begun submitting the film to various festivals.
In the future, she hopes to tell more such little-known stories she has gathered from the many years spent in this region. 'I think I have at least three or four fascinating stories that can easily become films,' she says. 'We are just looking for generous donors and funders who also want to tell these stories.'
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