"Directed by" "Cinematography by" "CALCUTTA, FEBRUAR Y 1968..." "Why are you here?" "They picked me up in the street." "I haven't eaten anything for several days." "Calcutta is a difficult city." "Are you from Calcutta?" "No, I come from far away." "When I was 20, I left my family, and since then I've been traveling here and there on foot." "I visit the holy places." "I'm a hermit." "I beg for my food." "Why did you give up everything at the age of 20?" "Because life is an illusion." "This room, near the temple of Kali, was donated by the municipality to the Catholic order of Mother Teresa." "A French nun named it" ""the dying room. "" "Every morning at dawn, the nuns drive around Calcutta in a little truck." "From among the bodies on the sidewalks, they take the sickest and the dying." "The police bring in others." "Still others are sent by the city's hospitals." "Many of them die." "The survivors, after a few days, return to the street to make room for newcomers." "This music comes from outside - hit songs from films." "After the elections of 1967," "West Bengal was governed by a United Front, ranging from center-left to communist." "Following a parliamentary maneuver, that government was overthrown." "Martial law was declared and assemblies of more than five persons forbidden." "So every afternoon, in front of the governor's palace, partisans of the United Front defy the law." "The police arrest them and take them away in vans, without violence on either side." "Today, it's women's organizations who are demonstrating." "The orange flag and trident are symbols of a religious sect." "Some of the slogans say," ""They call that Ghandism." "We call it fascisml"" ""Long live the revolutionl"" ""Bengal, another Vietnaml"" ""Down with the Yankees'henchmenl"" "There are two Communist parties in India. :" "left-wing Communists and right-wing Communists." "Both deny any allegiance to Mao's China." "In 1967 at Naxalbari, in Northern Bengal, a Maoist-inspired peasant revolt was put down by the United Front government, which included members of both Communist parties." "These women will spend three days in prison, some with their children." "In Kumartoli, in the northern part of the city, artisans are preparing for the festival of Saraswati, goddess of wisdom, wife of Brahma, protectress of students." "Thousands of statues are produced and sold in the days preceding the festival." "The statues are expensive." "Money is collected by family, caste, or street." "The day before the festival, on the sidewalks, drum players display their skill." "Their services are rented for the ceremony." "The statues are exposed for a week in houses and in the street and then brought in solemn procession to be plunged into the river." "The procession lasts all night." "These dancers are students from the University of Calcutta." "Right in the middle of Calcutta," "Indians have left standing a gigantic memorial to Queen Victoria." "It's the city's most important monument." "Calcutta didn't exist before the English." "Built around a military fort on the site of a fishing village, the city was developed strictly to meet the needs of colonialism." "At the end of the 18th century, the British East India Company systematically exploited and exhausted the riches of Bengal, taking considerable capital back to England." "This influx of money allowed the industrial revolution and English capitalism to get underway." "The Royal Calcutta Golf Club, situated in the midst of a working-class neighborhood, is protected by high walls." "It's filled with portraits of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh." "These Anglicized Indians, along with other foreigners, form an all-powerful economic class set completely apart from the rest of the population." "Before India's independence, jute fields were located to the east of Bengal, jute factories to the west." "After the partition in 1947, the jute fields ended up in East Pakistan, the factories in India." "Deprived of their raw materials," "Indians have had to devote certain regions to jute traditionally used for growing rice." "Due to this and its ever-increasing population," "Bengal, once a rice exporter, can no longer feed its people." "Workers in this factory are mostly refugees from Pakistan." "Labor unions struggle here due to hostility from management and unemployment." "Severe competition in the global market makes it hard for this prewar factory to keep up." "This narrow-gauge railway, a privately owned line, connects the farming outskirts with Calcutta." "It's in debt, and there's talk of closing it down." "Every morning it brings workers into the city, as well as peasants bringing their produce to market." "Many manage to ride without a ticket." "Greater Calcutta now has over eight million inhabitants." "The population has tripled since independence." "More than two million refugees came from Pakistan, and there is constant immigration from the countryside." "Nutrition poses difficult challenges." "Food is expensive and rationed." "Residents use ration cards for rice, sugar and oil." "Today is the festival of Chinese New Year." "There are 50,000 Chinese in Calcutta." "Sadhus, or renunciants, numerous in the streets of the city, are hermits who live off charity." "They have voluntarily cut themselves off from society." "They are respected and sometimes feared." "These flowers are intended strictly for religious use." "They are laid before divine images as offerings." "Bengalis have a particular reverence for Kali, wife of Shiva, goddess of death and destruction." "Every morning at the temple of Kali in the center of town, goats are beheaded in ritual sacrifice." "Almost everywhere in Calcutta there are "burning ghats, "" "where cremation takes place." "The ceremony is performed by the nearest relative of the deceased- here, the husband- with the help of a priest." "For a Hindu, death is not a dramatic event." "It is neither an end nor a deliverance." "According to Hindu belief, based on successive reincarnations of the Self, life is only a stage, a passage, a brief moment in a cosmic cycle." "The recitations are in Sanskrit, the language of sacred texts." "The priest evokes the four elements. :" "fire, water, air and earth." "The body must be completely consumed and the ashes thrown into the river." "Only then is the spirit set free to find another mortal sheath." "This shantytown is located in the very heart of Calcutta." "It's not an exception." "Isolated at the country's eastern edge, this gigantic city is in economic recession." "A vestige of colonialism, it's poorly adapted to the new Indian economy." "Living conditions here grow continually worse." "And yet still immigrants pour in." "It's very hard for them to find work." "Over half a million residents have no fixed residence." "They live, sleep and sometimes die in the street." "During the rainy season, the city is flooded." "In 20 years, if the population boom continues at the present rate," "Calcutta will reach 20 million inhabitants." "This 25-story building is the city's most modern construction." "It will house offices." "Labor is so abundant and so cheap that work is barely mechanized." "Women form human chains to carry bricks to the top." "Steel rods for concrete are raised from the ground by a crew of 1 2 men." "Those 1 2 men cost less than a pulley." "Labor unions fight actively against mechanization, which increases unemployment." "Porters, rickshaw boys, unskilled labor- almost all manual workers are peasants who have come temporarily from the neighboring state of Bihar." "There are two million Bihari here - one quarter of the population." "They make up a subproletariat hovering on the fringes of society." "Their salaries are the lowest, on the order of 75 rupees, or 60 francs per month." "Their living conditions are the worst." "They save as much as they can and, after as long as 20 years, return to the villages where they left wives and children." "This male immigration explains why there are two men for every woman in Calcutta." "After work, porters at the Sealdah railway station, all natives of Bihar, gather on the sidewalk opposite the station for a religious ceremony." "A large part of commerce and industry in Calcutta is controlled by the Marwari, who originate in the desert-like state of Rajasthan, on the other side of India." "This wedding in a bourgeois family combines strictest tradition with Western influence." "An accordion plays all night for the guests." "The father of the bride is a rich printer, a member of the Rotary Club and the Congress party." "The religious ceremony itself lasts about 40 minutes." "The very complex ritual consists of purifications, offerings and invocation of the elements." "The young woman's dowry consists of a large sum of money and all the jewels she's wearing." "The red streak parting the bride's hair indicates the sacrament has been accomplished." "She'll keep it until she dies or is widowed." "On the terrace of the house where the wedding banquet takes place, a thousand guests sit down to eat in shifts." "No alcohol is served." "The ceremony and the reception cost the father 15,000 rupees." "Certain students in this school have been studying for 10 or 1 2 years, with no professional ambition, just for pleasure." "They work under the direction of Aashish Khan, son of Ali Akbar and nephew of Ravi Shankar." "The governor has closed the university." "We've been asked to demonstrate, but this students'march is led by opportunists from the United Front." "It was they who put the peasant leaders of Naxalbari in prison." "None of that concerns us." "It's bourgeois and revisionist politics." "We want to wage a revolution with the peasants, outside bourgeois democracy, through armed struggle, following the example of the Chinese revolution and the Vietnamese people." "The demonstrators head for the governor's palace." "It's a small, disjointed group." "There are socialists of various tendencies, left" " And right-wing communists, and pro-Chinese extremists, broken up into little groups." "The students cross the city in ragtag formation." "Ten thousand policemen and soldiers are waiting for them." "In the middle of the afternoon, a religious procession interrupts the demonstration." "The faithful are celebrating the anniversary of the death of a certain Rabidas, founder of a syncretic sect comprising low-caste Hindus, untouchables, Sikhs and Muslims." "Afterwards, the demonstration starts up again immediately." "This leper, reciting a poem in Urdu, the language of India's Muslims, was once a government employee." "The disease cost him his family and position and made him a beggar." "There are between 70,000 and 80,000 lepers in Calcutta, nearly all beggars." "The municipality can't cope with them." "A charitable organization cares for some of them." "I can't board a tram." "I can't get on a bus." "If I ask for tea, the hotelkeeper will say, "Have you got your own teapot?"" "He'll tell me to place it on the ground." "He'll pour boiling water on it, touching it only after it's cleaned." "That's how we're treated here." "Our own people look at us with hate-filled eyes." "Every evening in Dapa, after reciting an Our Father, the nuns distribute soybean oil furnished by UNICEF." "The cans are carefully marked in 1 7 languages," ""Donated by the people of the United States. "" "Seven years ago this sadhu made a vow never again to sit or lie down." "He stands night and day under a tree in a public garden a few yards from the Grand Hotel, surrounded by his followers." "Every Sunday the Maidan, the huge public park in the center of the city, is invaded by an immense crowd from the working-class neighborhoods." "Wrestlers, vendors, singers, story-tellers, musicians and priests share the crowd." "The themes of the stories and songs are always religious, taken from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the great epics of Hinduism." "These men, who don't know each other, pray and sing all afternoon and evening." "Forty percent of Calcutta's inhabitants live in what experts call subhuman conditions." "This slum is located in Howrah, on the other side of the river, in the railroad loop." "Just one quarter of the habitations are built of brick or concrete." "The land and houses belong to private owners." "Rents are high." "Sixty percent of these slum dwellers are Muslims." "The others are Hindus, generally untouchables." "There's a certain tension between the communities, but living conditions have practically eliminated religious taboos." "Muslims and Hindus share the same houses and wells, which would be unthinkable in a village." "This man lives here with his family." "He works for the railroad and earns a monthly salary of 100 rupees." "He rents two rooms. :" "one for his mother, father and sister, another for his wife, six children and himself." "He pays 35 rupees a month." "His parents are elderly." "His sister helps out a little." "He purchases or uses ration cards for rice, sugar and oil at a cost of 100 rupees a month." "He can't make ends meet and borrows continually." "Some in the slum earn more than him, others less." "There are many others who can't find work." "In this slum, many buildings are grouped into a compound around an enclosed courtyard and well." "Eleven families, more than 80 persons, live in this compound." "averaging five or six per room." "The rooms are tiny." "This slum is not an exception." "There are many more like it." "Despite halfway measures to clean up the slums and relocate their residents, the city administration of Greater Calcutta has practically given up." "If the slums were cleared, other immigrants would immediately arrive to occupy the vacated space, thus increasing the population and making the problem even more difficult to solve." "Several thousand dairy cows are crowded into stables all over the slum." "They belong to outside owners." "Their excrement and refuse block the sewage canals, causing them to overflow, especially in the rainy season." "In the heart of the slum, potters make clay cups, which are dried in the sun." "They are intended for the city's numerous tea shops and are broken after use." "In Howrah, where this slum is located, garbage has not been collected for several months." "The municipality is short of funds." "These patties made of coal dust and cow dung are used as fuel." "Several compounds in this slum are reserved for lepers." "They live in strict quarantine, with their own wells and food." "Most of them are beggars in the city." "They earn a living better than those in the slum who work." "At the first signs of illness, a leper must immediately go to one of these compounds with his family." "Lepers form a separate caste, of Hindus and Muslims both, and marry among themselves." "Leprosy is not hereditary, but since the lepers' children can't leave the quarantine, they catch the illness by contagion." "At the very end of the slum, alongside the railway warehouses, families who have come recently from the state of Madras, at the southernmost tip of India, are crowded into straw huts." "Their skin is darker and they speak Tamil, a language totally different from Bengali." "They have a bad reputation and don't mix with their neighbors." "Many are ragpickers." "Their children don't go to school." "These men and women have voluntarily left their village and come here in hopes of finding work." "They are astonished to be filmed, to be pitied, to be a source of indignation."