Overview:
Bharat Bala - a phenomenal filmmaker captures a slice of life stories from all over India in his series
The India Experience: Season 1
The movie screen opens to a frame that captures the famous boat race held in the Kerala backwaters every year; boats glide across the movie screen at a speed that quickens the pulse. The synchrony of movement is mesmerizing, but the ‘aha’ within me that marvels merely at the technical precision on display widens to feel something larger.
The members of the rowing team emphasize how the entire cast of characters on the boat comes together in body and mind to internalize the rhythm set by its master. A single slipup can cost precious seconds. With one blow of a small trumpet, the entire boat of 100 odd men, men who are not professional athletes – carpenters, auto rickshaw drivers, shopkeepers and more start rowing with the same rhythmic sequence energizing their minds and bodies – fingers grasp the oars, toes press the wooden planks, the chest heaves forward and leans back – their bodies come alive to the same internal rhythm. That moment of sharing about what it takes to be part of a technically precise, thrilling rowing experience captures the quiet striving, the humanity, and the soul of the documentary ‘Thaalam’ by Bharat Bala.
Telling their own stories
I had a wonderful chat with Bharat Bala to parse apart his creative impulses and the thinking behind the screening of Season 1 of his Virtual Bharat series. Eight documentaries in this inaugural season take us across the vast country, where the camera lens lights up diverse stories of human dignity and striving. “Social media is filled with photos, reels and videos of people who visit various places, and even as they experience various activities, they are in the middle of the frame saying – look at what I saw, look at what I am eating, look at where I have been. I removed that narrator from the frame, and essentially let the people tell their own stories in their own words in the spaces they live in,” he says.
A successful ad filmmaker, his foray into documentaries was inspired by his father’s astute observation. An ad film captures an emotion and creates brand loyalty all within a short span of time – would it be possible to create movies on India and Indians to inspire the next generation of Indians? This was the question posed to him by his father. His father was a Gandhian and a keen photographer. A nationalistic sense of pride and a keen sense of the possibilities of the camera lens – Bharat Bala has inherited both in good measure from his father, and his visionary artistic project Virtual Bharat is sure proof of that. He aims to create 1000 documentaries on India, capturing the spirit of a nation through its people. His first foray in the documentary space was the wildly popular video he created to accompany A.R. Rahman’s Vande Mataram.
Incredible diversity
Last week, The India Experience: Season 1, featuring eight documentaries, was screened at Alamo Drafthouse in Mountainview. The Bay Area diasporic community was in full attendance and in complete awe as the documentaries took us to remote corners of India. The sheer variety of stories, landscapes, and themes was staggering. From Kerala to Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab to remote corners of Orissa and Nagaland, the series emphasizes diversity in every way imaginable – landscapes, languages, themes, and the people it showcases. English subtitles make all the stories accessible to everyone.
Bharat Bala says, “The people in our movies are not professional actors. They are not used to the camera being trained on them. Our task becomes – how do we make them come across as real and trusting on the screen? Having deep conversations with each one of them, building trust and a sense of shared purpose, is part of our process of filmmaking. When we shoot, we aim to capture their authentic voice. It is through in-depth conversations that we come up with a creative ‘hook,’ something which will be the essence of the story that is appealing.”
The process of filmmaking
The process he lays out is sincere and inspiring, but it can be arduous – traveling all over India with bulky equipment, chunks of time spent doing in-depth research, creating anthropological studies of a community and its people. talking and connecting with people who can help with translating on their behalf, making sure to capture unique festivals at the time that they are held, the list is long.
But what one is left with at the end of this process is a movie screen that crackles and sings an ode to India and its greatest wealth, its people.
When I saw Season 1 of Virtual Bharat, it was truly uplifting – I left with images of ordinary people who loomed large in my mind, not because of the snazzy clothes they wore, the artistically designed movie sets where they were placed, or the melodies of romantic songs they sang in exotic locations. They were writing a life of purpose on screen, capturing human dignity and soul. A far cry from the movies that flit across the silver screen capturing all that can debase the human spirit, leaving one feeling heavy and despondent.
The voices of India
After creating 90-plus documentaries of empathic storytelling, capturing the human spirit at its most uplifting, it is even more inspiring to hear Bharat Bala say, “We are just getting started. My dream is to make 1000 movies in India through the voices of its people.” His vision is not only groundbreaking for the numbers he has set out to achieve, but it is truly exceptional for what it captures – the soul of a nation – its people living lives of quiet striving, filled with integrity, sincerity, and purpose.
To stand up and applaud the visionary creator of Virtual Bharat, Bharat Bala, his team members, and the funders for this series is to stand up for human dignity and soul at a time when stories of goodness seem to slide in sepia-toned blurriness behind the extreme stories of human depravity that seem to dominate. His stories do not merely light the screen in front of us; they ignite something deep and heartening within. We bear witness to art with heart!