Phantom India (1969–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - The Impossible Camera - full transcript

PHANTOM INDIA
Reflections on a Journey

Only 2% of Indians speak English,
the official language after colonization.

This 2% talks a lot,
in the name of all the rest.

Politicians, businessmen,
intellectuals, bureaucrats -

all explained
their ideas to me at length,

and I immediately sensed that the real
questions weren't being addressed.

In learning English,

they also learned to think
as our civilization does.

Their words about their country were
ordered by Western symbols and logic.

I'd heard them all before.
I recognized them as my own.

Tattered ideas, worn-out phrases,



like Nietzsche's birds,
so exhausted from flying

that one can catch them
in one's hand.

Thursday, January 18.
Delhi, the first day of shooting.

We leave the city.

Behind a small factory in the suburbs,
a barren vacant lot,

scattered clumps of grass,
crouching women.

On our arrival, one of the women
curses us and flees.

Her curses are translated:
She doesn't want to be filmed.

It's evil,
a spell we cast upon her.

Being filmed will steal
from her everything she is.

The camera's fundamental brazenness
is something I've constantly experienced,

even in Paris, even with actors,
even on film sets.

Here it's worse.
These women have absolutely nothing.

They spend the morning on their knees
to glean a handful of fodder,



and I steal a bit more from them.

To them, we're Martians.

We enter their universe
without permission.

Our camera is a weapon,
and they're afraid of us.

Thursday, January 25.
Shepherds on the road to Halvar at night.

Camera in hand,
we emerge from the shadows

like bandits.

The shepherds watch us filming them,
half worried, half mocking.

Our loot: A few images,
a few words, some laughter.

We know nothing about them.
They know nothing about us.

That's what this film will be:

Images gathered without a script
or preconceived concept,

a film of our chance encounters.

Like these stonecutters
on the outskirts of a village.

They seem from another age,

pyramid builders,
slaves from vanished civilizations.

I feel like I'm dreaming
with my eyes open,

but for them, it's terribly real.

They earn half a rupee per stone
and haul eight stones a day.

Tuesday, April 9.
Mysore, 2:00 p. m.

The man's face
is blackened with smoke.

A skeleton is painted
on the child's bare skin.

These are Muslims
celebrating Muhurram.

This traditional dance is called
the Tiger Dance.

It's also a job. The man and child
earn their living dancing.

Words are useless between us.
The image is our only connection.

They dance and I film them.
That's all.

Everywhere we go, the first thing
I see are their eyes, their stares.

In a moment
we're surrounded by Indians.

We came to see them,
but they're the ones looking at us.

So we preferred to film them that way,

their sea of enormous eyes
turned on us,

on the camera's single eye.

We decided to film all these looks,

to make them
the leitmotiv of our journey.

Monday, February 19.

A group gathers around
an orchestra and dancers at a wedding.

At our approach, everything stops.

The participants stop
what they're doing to look at us.

The roles are reversed:

We've become the show,
and they're the audience.

The young groom,
his face covered with yellow powder,

wearing a flowered hat,
waits for something to happen,

for us to do something.

Bit by bit,
they seem to forget about us.

The ceremony continues

with its precise ritual,
unchanged for centuries.

This eternity erases us,
like an unimportant spot in the crowd.

The husband goes from door to door.
He's given rice and offerings.

For 150 bricks,
these men earn one rupee,

equivalent to 64 centimes,

but equivalents are meaningless here
where everything is different.

We film them as they are, the hypnotic
repetition of their movements.

There's some sort of truth to be found
there at least.

To tell how they work
10-12 hours a day,

live in huts,
come from neighboring villages,

have no land-

would all that add anything
to what the images already reveal?

Saturday, March 2.

The proletarianized peasants
call these "the backward classes",

an expression used to designate
those without caste, the Untouchables.

They are exploited,
their lives stolen.

In this scene,
rich ground for political analysis,

I notice the camera's
chosen only one aspect.

It keeps returning
to this young woman,

because we're drawn to her beauty,
her graceful modesty, her laugh.

Because she dazzles us. Because
that's what it was like that morning.

Gradually we discovered
the simple joy of not planning ahead,

of deciding neither what to shoot
nor its meaning.

We follow the camera.
It guides us.

We're not filming to defend an idea,
or demonstrate one.

For three months
we followed the trees.

The roads are terrible,
but the trees are magnificent.

They've been revered for centuries,
with altars devoted to them,

with a statue of Ganesh,
son of Shiva,

elephant-headed god
of prosperity.

I made this journey
for personal reasons.

It was an escape,
a break, a sudden detour,

but the escape quickly
became a quest,

a need to discover, or rediscover.

Each step we take is part of the film.

Westerners with a camera -
Westerners twice over.

Sunday, February 18.

We saw the flags
and heard the music,

but when we got there,
the festival was over.

We saw priests
giving food to beggars.

Or at least
that's what we thought we saw.

But these aren't beggars, but Brahman
peasants come from local villages

for a ceremony honoring Shiva
that will last several days.

As Brahmans they belong
to the highest level of the caste system.

This doesn't make them the richest,
but the most respected.

Other peasants keep
a respectful distance.

They'd never dare share
the Brahmans'meal.

Knowing someone's a Brahman isn't
enough to place them in Indian society.

There are more than 1.800 subdivisions
within the Brahman caste.

The groups cannot intermarry,
nor even share a meal.

Western logic fails here.

It takes an intuitive understanding.

We'd have to experience it
from the inside, be a part of it.

These are Catholic Indians, traveling
performers putting on their show.

A circling rider who never dismounts,
a transvestite in too much makeup,

music that isn't Indian at all,

an image of Jesus on the altar
among Hindu gods -

it's like something
out of a Fellini film,

ambiguous, indecent,
completely unexpected in India,

which continually startles us
with its Puritanism.

I'm taken by the sudden feeling
of being home again,

finding Europe
on the shores of Kerala.

Friday, April 5.

A Communist demonstration.

I'm told they're postal workers
protesting a postage increase.

It seems odd, but at the same time,
quite nice of them.

They keep chanting the same slogans.

We keep hearing a word
that means "Long live..."

Long live the Communist party,
the postal union, the Vietcong.

I don't believe the story
about the postage increase.

I can see they don't trust us.

We've often been taken
for US spies, CIA informants.

Indeed, I often feel like a cop,

as if my film were surveillance,

an investigation
whose purpose still escapes me.

Friday, March 18.

In the south, not far from a village,

we come across
a large group of vultures.

The corpse at the side of the road
is a buffalo, mostly intact.

We've seen this often.

In many parts of India,
for religious reasons,

it's forbidden to slay cattle.

They still die - of old age,
sickness, cold, hunger,

what we call "natural causes."

A dog helps itself to the corpse,

while vultures wait.
They're in no hurry.

When I see this scene again today,

I realize we reacted
in terms of our culture.

Around us, the landscape
reminded us of Greece,

bathed in some austere grandeur

that lent an air
of mysterious sacrifice.

To us it was a tragedy,
a drama in several acts.

For our Indian companion,
it was an everyday scene:

A glimpse of life and death
and their calm alternation.

It was nothing worth filming,
nothing extraordinary.

As we headed further south,

we frequently found statues
at the entrance to villages:

Gigantic animals, especially horses.

These are the villages' divine protectors,
their personal gods.

In the south, religion is everywhere
a part of daily life.

Here, a jeweler throws a party
for his friends and family.

Folklore, as seen in the West,

is the continuation or rediscovery
of ancient traditions.

Folklore needs tourists to exist,
and in India, tourists are scarce.

The gestures, the attitudes,
the ceremony,

everything happens
in the present tense,

in the indicative mode, in reality.

Once the film has been finished,
edited and projected,

it can be seen as folklore,

but it's you and I
who make it so.

Drawings with ritual meanings
can be found everywhere in India:

On entrances to houses, on walls,
in the streets, in homes.

The women who create them
allow only tiny variations

on specific symbolic themes.

Where we take aesthetic pleasure

in the abstract floral drawings,

these women experience
and recapture a link with the divine.

They draw to bring
their god to them.

Indian women are very beautiful,
especially in the southern villages.

These women belong
to a group with tribal origins

that merged with the caste system.

They wear brightly colored clothing,

predominantly red
and inlaid with tiny mirrors,

like fabrics from Gujarat.

Their noses, ears, necks,
wrists and ankles

are all covered
with solid silver jewelry.

They wear their fortune on them.

Alongside the dirty, crumpled rupees
passed from hand to hand,

there's this wealth
worn by all the women,

incomprehensible
in such a poor country.

There is much dancing in India,

yet it's very rare to see
a dance including both sexes.

Maybe this is a mystery of a country
which remains essentially rural,

where an unchangeable system reigns.

Each person knows what to expect
of his life from childhood.

Everything is laid out in advance,
even marriages,

governed by the exacting boundaries
of castes, subcastes and families.

A lengthy protocol,

a rather dreary party
despite the expense,

and above all,
the bride's solemn expression.

There was something poignant
about all these marriages,

but maybe that's just
one more Western conception.

We spent five months in India
without ever seeing love.

We never saw a man
turn to watch a woman,

never saw a woman whistled at, nor
a single provocative or tender gesture,

as if there were only one sex.

Once, however,
during our last days in Bombay,

we came upon
this boy and girl flirting.

We filmed these two lovers
with rapt attention.

It's our most precious footage,
absolutely unique.

In India we always saw
the women on one side of the street,

the men on the other.

What also surprised me
was the lack in Indian newspapers

of reports of sexual offenses,

sadistic acts, rape, exhibitionism, etc.

Each Sunday, Indian newspapers
devote pages to marriage offers.

These aren't Ionely-hearts ads.

They state their terms.

I'll read an example:
"Seeking accomplished young woman,

light-skinned, non-kusika,

for single man,
masanad prakaranam,

34 years old, government employee.

Send horoscope."

Marriage isn't a personal matter here.

First and foremost
it's about caste,

because the young woman
must not be kusika

in order to marry the young man of
the subcaste masanad prakaranam.

As for the horoscope,
requested without fail,

it crushes any chance
of love at first sight.

"Light-skinned"is a frequent demand,
but completely relative, of course,

in a land where everyone is
more or less copper-skinned,

but it's assigned great importance,
especially in the higher castes.

In Northern India especially,

a dark-skinned child's birth
into a high-ranking family

is seen as a catastrophe.

Saturday, February 17.

Konarak.
A gigantic chariot of the sun,

with 12 stone wheels,
each 10 feet high.

Begun in the 13th century,
it was never completely finished.

This temple is famous
for its countless bas-reliefs of all sizes

illustrating the Kama Sutra,

the Indian encyclopedia
of erotic techniques.

Indian tourists listen calmly to the guide.
Apparently, they aren't shocked.

Is it just a pose?

Victorian England
brought its Puritanism here

and left a profound mark on India.

In Indian films, couples never kiss.
It's forbidden by the censors.

In the crowd of Indians,
we meet two young Frenchmen.

They belong to the international
brotherhood of penniless travelers

that journalists call
"beatniks" or "hippies."

Lots of Europeans who come here

are touched by grace.

After only two weeks in India,
they claim they're Buddhist

or Hindu.

Some just make the trip on a lark
and smoke hashish all day.

That's all they do - smoke and sit around.
They don't go anywhere.

All they're interested in here
is being able to smoke freely.

That's all they care about.

For a lot of people,

drugs are an end in themselves

instead of a means.

Hashish can be a way
of opening yourself more fully

to music or poetry or love.

It can be a means
of accessing those things,

but for a lot of people
it's an end in itself.

They say, "We can smoke hashish.
We're free and happy."

India is too beautiful,
too full of things.

It makes you want to stay.

We thought we'd stay three months,
but now we don't want to leave.

We've gotten used
to the Indian rhythm of life

and have adopted it.

When we left France we still had...

the defects of Western society.

We were basically
selfish individualists.

Here you realize
that money doesn't matter.

The Americans send
their Peace Corps here

to teach the people to fish intensively.

The people aren't interested.

They have enough to live on
and don't need more.

They don't feel the need for more.

That's an Indian character trait.

They won't work more
than they need to.

The poorest man with a rickshaw -

ask him to take you somewhere,
and he'll say no if he doesn't want to,

even if you give him money.

He earns his three rupees daily
and that's enough. He doesn't need four.

The fisherman fishes until he catches
his two pounds each day.

He's not interested
in catching more.

Why? To have more money?
He's not interested.

You're not interested in money?
- Absolutely not.

Unfortunately, in the society we live in,
we need money.

When you live in modern society,
you need money to live.

You can't live without money.

You'd like to get rid of it?

At our level, yes.

We live in a parallel society,
completely different from modern society.

Capitalism and all that.

If we have enough to live on,
that's enough.

We don't want
to produce things to export.

We produce what we need
for ourselves.

We don't need the extra money.

By farming the land,
making our own tables and furniture,

binding our own books.

Knowledge won't be limited
to a bunch of dusty intellectuals.

The days of books
and grandiose thought are over.

We have to know
how to farm the land.

The only religion will be
that of love and friendship

and life.

If it works, maybe someone will say,
"Hey, that's a good idea.

I'll do the same thing here."
And another will say the same.

Maybe a lot of people.

In Madras, three weeks later,
we ran into Bernard and Didier again.

They'd changed a lot.

As we went further south,
the climate got rough.

I got sick as soon as I got here.

Ever since I got to Madras,
I haven't been able to eat.

I throw up. My head hurts.

You've decided to go home?

Yes, I wrote to my parents.

They're sending money
and a plane ticket.

Didier has made up his mind
to go home.

He doesn't want
to try Indian doctors or medicine.

To go back suddenly like this,

straight from Madras to Paris,
is going to be really strange.

I'm going to Goa.

By yourself?
- All by myself, like a big boy.

To Goa, then back to Delhi?

Then Pakistan.

Young people from Sweden,
Germany, England, Australia -

all the industrialized nations -

have come here, like me,
to find something else.

But none of us
can escape our civilization.

I'm afraid they're dreaming India,
like I am.

In Goa, on one of the immense beaches
inhabited by hippies,

an Italian nudist
spoke of his disillusionment.

What were you looking for?

A new way of living.

To learn to live a certain way.

I wanted spirituality in my life
that was missing in Italy.

I felt something was missing,
that there were other things to do.

That's what I came to find,
but I didn't find it.

Maybe what I was looking for
was just an idea I had.

An idea of my own.

Just an idea in my own head
from reading books.

For example, I was really interested
in the life of Gandhi.

It really intrigued me.

But the idea Gandhi represented
can't be found here anymore.

Yes, India isn't easy for foreigners.

It started with the American rental car,

an exception in India,
where late-model imported cars are rare.

The tires were completely bald.

The manager of the rental agency
offers to change them,

but there's one problem:

There are no tires this size in India.
They're not produced here.

But they'll find some
approximately the same size.

That "approximately" will mean a dozen
flat tires over the next two months,

the same scene
repeated over and over.

Ten mechanics take the tires off,
remount them and take them off again,

trying to solve the impossible problem
of the curve of the rim.

They possess infinite patience.
Time doesn't seem to exist.

It can take an entire afternoon.

Once or twice,
due to our poor Western upbringing,

we threw an angry fit,

an ugly - and quite useless - reflex.

Tuesday, February 27.

I awoke very early.

The light is still undecided,
very soft and sad,

as it often is in the tropics.

I'm suddenly projected
15 years into the past,

to early mornings in the Seychelles,

on beaches like this.

I was 20, shooting my first film.

The tropics enchanted me, the entire
world one big promise of happiness.

Suddenly, the fishermen in front of me
are replaced by others.

Once again
memory fills the foreground.

Once again, I'm incapable
of living in the present,

of feeling it, of touching it.

Even in the Seychelles,
reality escaped me,

that elusive harmony
between men, light and landscape.

I had to reinvent it, modify it,

project onto it
my dreams and memories.

I had to destroy it.

Westerner, filmmaker,

time's tamer, time's slave.

The sun is now high in the sky.

The catch is poor, as it often is
on the Madras coast.

We film the faces,
the order and beauty of things.

Suddenly, the scene changes.

A stranger joins the fisherman.

He stands out in his city clothes.

He's come to buy their fish,

to take it on his bicycle
to sell in the neighboring city.

He's not a big buyer,

but for these fishermen, as in the rest
of the world, he's the enemy,

a middleman
who won't pay full price.

So begins an argument over pennies.

It's the same story over and over,
the old story of exploitation.

These fishermen
are in a caste of their own,

or more precisely, a non-caste -
unclean, untouchable.

They live on the bare sand, sleeping in
huts made of leaves or under the stars.

Sometimes they move further down
this stretch of beach.

Then they return.

They aren't sailors.
They can only fish from the shore.

That's how they've always done it.

Another argument breaks out.
Once again it's about money.

The woman is the partner and ally
of the fishmonger on the bicycle.

Here's my film :

On one hand, an entirely subjective
reflection on my interior world,

but on the other,
just the opposite:

The economic realities
that won't let me escape into dreams.

An incessant back-and-forth
between myself and the things before me.

Almost always,
reality gains the upper hand.

March 11, 6:00 a. m.

A festival at the Kapaleeshwar temple
on the outskirts of Madras.

Once a year, this immense chariot
is taken from the temple

and solemnly paraded around
the temple walls and reflecting pool.

It takes five hours
to cover the half-mile circuit.

These chariots,
found in all the temples in the south,

are made of carved wood.

They're extremely heavy
and have neither steering nor brakes.

They're also ageless,
unchanged for centuries.

Pieces are replaced
as they wear out.

Priests ride inside the chariot.

At each stop, they bless
offerings hoisted up in baskets,

offerings of coconut and fruit.

There's a large peace-keeping force.

Police, soldiers, and some of the
faithful too, dressed up like Boy Scouts.

From the upper floors of residences,
the parade is doused with water.

It's both a ritual
and a welcome refreshment.

Hundreds of the faithful pull the chariot,
an exhausting and dangerous task.

It takes a lever and several men
to get it rolling.

To stop it, they throw
wedges under the wheels.

The chariot slides for 20 yards
before stopping,

threatening to topple over
at any moment.

At first, we're afraid:
Afraid of the screaming crowd,

afraid of this colossus
that threatens to demolish a house

or crush a crowd of believers.

The hellish, suffocating, humid heat

reinforces the sense
of collective trance,

where everything can be released,
where rich and poor mingle,

where castes no longer exist,

all abandoning their individuality
to blend into one mass,

a single body without name or face.

We got caught up in the madness.

We became part of the crowd,
shooting reel after reel,

jostled like them,
drenched like them, joyous like them.

For a moment
I forgot who I was.

I was part of something else.
I belonged.

I gave myself up to it,
heart and soul.

Obviously, sitting here in Paris,
these images seem different.

They can be seen as illustrating
medieval India, obscurantism,

the exploitation of the gullible,

fetishism and the opium
of the people.

But that morning we followed
our instincts, our senses, our feelings,

not our ideas.

We left the crowd at noon,
exhausted, completely drained.

For five hours we'd experienced life
differently, at a different rhythm.

In the tireless repetition of gestures,
in the sea of faces,

time had disappeared,
completely ceased to exist.

Sunday, March 3.

We saw a comedy in Tamil,
the language of Madras.

It was a scathing attack
on the New Delhi government,

politicians,

and the bureaucracy, criticized
for its corruption and inefficiency.

Bureaucracy is truly
the scourge of this country.

A legacy of the English,
a state within a state,

it terrified us at every encounter.

Entire days lost in the shuffle
from office to office,

countless underpaid employees,

polite smiles, vacant looks, refusal
to take the slightest responsibility,

waiting lines filling hallways, piles of
paper everywhere, misplaced documents:

It constantly reminds us of Kafka,

and we wonder why the Indians don't
have their own Cultural Revolution

and send the bureaucrats
out into the fields.

The playwright is named Cho.

It's his 13th play,
written in two days.

He plays the lead, the Mongolian
emperor Mohammed Bin Tughlaq,

renowned for his despotism,
who ruled India three centuries ago.

Cho's play tells of Tughlaq
returning to India today,

demanding his throne
and being named prime minister.

At the end of the play,
we realize he's an impostor

out to show Indians
the absurdity of their politics.

A few years ago a new political party
was formed here, the DMK.

It campaigned for independence
for Madras from the rest of India.

In the '67 elections,
the DMKcame into power in Madras.

For the moment, they've laid aside
their separatist claims,

but the facts are telling:

India, as large as Europe,
is a mosaic of populations

with only religion
and the caste system in common.

The Indians in the south,
especially the Tamils,

are aware of their regional identities.

They're convinced
they're the "real" Indians,

those who best resisted
foreign influences

and preserved the customs, religion,

and culture of the past.

Descendants of the first inhabitants
of India, they have little Aryan blood.

They're very dark-skinned, which draws
the contempt of the northerners.

They accuse the northern Indians
of colonialism and exploitation.

One of their major problems
is language.

The government plans to replace English
as the official administrative language

with Hindi,
the main language of the north.

The southern Indians absolutely refuse,

provoking bloody riots and street fighting
in Madras and elsewhere.

The students lead the struggle.

One of their leaders,
T. R. Janarthanam,

an activist who led
a school strike of several months,

explains his viewpoint.

"Just 30% of the population
speak Hindi.

70% do not.

I can't accept the idea
of a minority language

replacing an international language
like English.

We've spoken
English for over 200 years.

It's become the Indian
national language.

It's unfair to impose
one of the 40 native languages

as the official language.

We, the Tamils, are against Hindi
and will not accept it in any form.

We'd be forced
to learn a third language

in addition to English and Tamil,

putting us at a disadvantage
to native speakers of Hindi.

The central government
should realize this

and understand our problem.

Otherwise, it will lead
to the disintegration of India."

The Indian government makes
a colossal effort at population control.

Everywhere one sees billboards
showing a happy Indian family of four-

two parents, two children -

even in the most remote villages.

We visited the family planning exhibit
at the Madras fair.

A mixed crowd files
past pictures and statistics

while being brainwashed
by loudspeakers.

What is this loudspeaker saying?

"Did you know that in our country,
a child is born every 1.5 seconds?"

55.000 every day,
21 million each year.

India represents
only 3% of the world's landmass

but contains 14%
of the world's population.

In 30 or 40 years,
there will be 1 billion Indians.

Until now, population control
hasn't achieved the anticipated results.

According to the latest statistics,

the population continues to grow
faster than production.

Yet the campaign
doesn't lack imagination,

offering a free radio

to any man who agrees
to be sterilized.

This is a demonstration booth.

A young man explains
how to use an IUD,

using 3-D models of sexual organs
and not sparing the slightest detail.

Now he's speaking to the men.

"If you want to have intercourse
with your wife, don't forget to use this."

After the demonstration,

he distributes Russian-made condoms
by the handful.

The audience scrambles for them,

especially a 10-year-old boy
who lays in a good supply.

Whose fault is it
if India is overpopulated?

Indians answer: England.

"They exploited our country,
bilked our peasants,

raped our economy, and at
the same time brought medicine."

So they lowered the infant mortality rate
and suppressed epidemics,

which means they disrupted
the demographic balance

without ever developing
the country's economy

to allow it support
this excess population.

Movies are a real industry in Madras.

In this city alone,
there are 15 major movie studios,

producing over 200 films every year:

Musicals of three or four hours,

historical epics,
detective films set to music,

anything that draws an audience.

Comparing these billboards
to the people in the streets,

we always wonder:

In a country with such beautiful,
delicate people,

why are most of the movie stars
short, fat and thick-featured?

They wear heavy white and pink makeup,
making them even uglier.

Once again, it's the racist prejudice
about skin color:

To be beautiful,
you must be white.

A movie studio in Madras
resembles one in Paris or Rome,

except for the garland of flowers
on the camera.

No one's in a hurry.
Here, a film can take a year to shoot.

This is a blockbuster,
a story of thwarted love

between a handsome musician
and a well-bred and chaperoned girl.

This is the scene
of love at first sight.

The film stars Sivaji Ganesan,
the Tamil Belmondo,

a superstar in southern India.

His career began on the stage
at the age of five.

He shoots several films simultaneously
and earns astronomical fees.

Indian intellectuals highly disapprove
of the cinema of Madras and Bombay.

They condemn its poor taste,
stupidity and excess,

calling it a synthesis of the worst
of Indian and western vulgarity.

But terrible as these films may be,

they're the means of expression
and sole entertainment for the people

in a country in which TV
is practically nonexistent.

I admit I liked some of these films,

with their incoherence, dramatic plot
twists, one-dimensional characters

and constant intervention
of magical forces.

Thursday, March 16.

Like obedient tourists
hungry for Indian culture,

we treat ourselves to a
performance of Bharatanatyam,

the classical dance
of southern India.

We're a bit surprised
by the chubbiness of the dancer,

and also by the cabaret-like
presentation.

Though treated like tourists,

we're still moved
by the extreme grace of the gestures

and the beauty of the singing.

Monday, March 11.

We're a few miles outside of Madras
at the Kalakshetra School,

conservatory for
the traditional dances of the south.

The school day here
begins with prayer.

Teachers and students sing to God.

The religion and rite don't matter.

God has many names,

but there's only one God.

This dance school was an offshoot
of the famous Theosophical Society,

founded more than 50 years ago
by Annie Besant,

a European who dreamt of bringing
India and the West closer.

It's a well-protected world.

It was difficult
to get authorization to film.

The directors of the school
kept hesitating,

questioning us
with slightly scornful suspicion.

Finally, they grudgingly agreed.

There are several courses.

We visited a class in Kathakali,
a dance from Kerala,

which has a different cultural heritage.

Kathakali is more realistic,
closer to mime, and restricted to men.

It's a kind of religious pantomime
with many characters.

The young dancers illustrate for us
how situations and feelings

are expressed in the symbolic language
of Kathakali.

This is a bee gathering pollen
from a lotus.

Climbing a mountain.

Fear.

Classes begin in the early morning,
before the heat becomes overwhelming.

Bharatanatyam is a woman's dance,

more stylized
and purer than Kathakali.

To be skilled at it,

one must train from the earliest age
and possess great patience.

These girls will train
for 10, 15 or 20 years

before giving a public performance.

The movement of the wrist, the nuance
of expression, the position of the foot -

each has a specific meaning.

Bharatanatyam is a code,
an encrypted language

that must be known to the audience
as well as the dancer.

Otherwise they can't follow the story.

Westerners watching the dance

are incapable of understanding,
incapable of participating.

From outside, we judge
its aesthetic qualities as a performance,

when in fact it's a ceremony.

Moving from class to class,

nonbelievers lost in a sacred world,
burdened by our equipment,

we noticed something quite striking:

No one paid us
the slightest attention.

All were extraordinarily concentrated
on their exercises.

To them, we didn't even exist.

It almost hurt our feelings.

Bharatanatyam is the mother dance
that gave birth to all the others.

It's said to have originated at Tanjore,
great temple of the Chola dynasty.

The dancers belonged to the temple
and danced only for worship.

Even today,
despite its secular appearance,

to dance is to relive a tradition,
regain a heritage,

reestablish contact between
the present moment and eternity.

The school gives performances
throughout India and abroad.

The students perform major ballets
with many characters,

but each dancer dreams
of becoming a soloist.

Few will succeed.

Others will pass on the tradition,
becoming teachers at the school.

There is currently
a Bharatanatyam renaissance,

which almost died out 50 years ago.

Perhaps this means
India is sliding towards folklore.

Perhaps this renaissance is
a death knell for the dance,

like everywhere that ancient traditions
are artificially recreated.

If India forgets Bharatanatyam,

there will always be
foreigners to dance it.

These two were admitted
to beginning classes at the school.

Their touching but pathetic efforts
are a bit embarrassing.

The American and the Japanese girl
have learned a little of the technique,

but it's obvious
something is missing.

There is neither truth nor grace
in their dancing.

It's a caricature.

Watch them carefully.

They demonstrate in striking fashion

how impossible it is for foreigners
to fit into Indian culture.

The failure is particularly striking here
in its physicality,

but it's the same in all domains.

The dancer must forget her body,
which is immensely difficult,

because perfection is achieved
only through absolute control of gesture

and memory.

But these dancers
have gone beyond technique.

These images clearly show dance
as language, or better yet, dialogue.

The gestures are a prayer,
an invocation.

The dance is one of the yogas,

meaning a path to transcendence,

a bridge between here
and the beyond.

We filmed tirelessly,
several days in a row,

as if the dancers were elusive images
that would fade away.

There was something uncertain
and unreal in the air

that tore at one's heart.

This grace, this beauty,
this perfect harmony of body and mind

is like the idealized vision of India,

one that I'd so rarely encountered
that I questioned if it really existed.

Mystical India,

India that transcends appearances
to achieve unity.

The southern Indians like to represent
their great god Shiva

in his incarnation as Nataraj,
the cosmic dancer,

he who orders
the movements of the universe.

Dance is the supreme expression
of Hinduism.

This is India:
A worldview we don't understand,

a social hierarchy that puzzles us,

an economic reality that shocks us,

but also the hesitant, fragile grace
of two girls conversing with God.

We have to practice every day.

From 9:00 to 11:00 a. m.,
and often in the afternoon.

She's from Hassan,
on the other side of India.

She's light-skinned,
with slightly Asian features.

The other is from Madras,
a purebred Tamil.

I liked their laughs,
their expressions,

how natural they were,
and how serious.

I told them that classical dancers
in Europe also practice every day.

They answer sharply,
"We have to concentrate more.

If we're not completely concentrated
on what we're doing,

we can't express our faith,
our love of God.

We must think and concentrate."

"The heroine is the main character
in solo Bharatanatyam performances.

She always venerates the hero,

and the hero is always
one of the gods in our religion.

Each god is attached
to a specific temple,

like Tanjore, for example.

The dance we rehearsed yesterday
was dedicated to the god Krishna.

Today's is to the god Shiva.

Songs always address
one god at a time.

We don't seek innovation.

We don't believe in it.

What we do
comes from the distant past,

and we always choose
traditional songs."

These are the stars of the school,
the best and the brightest,

or they will be when they finish,
for they still have much training ahead.

Now we've begun
to distract them a little.

We're keeping them from attaining
the total concentration needed

to attain perfection.

We keep filming.
We watch them endlessly.

Time has stopped.
We don't want to leave.

We can't tear ourselves away.

Then we're suddenly thrown out,

like slightly suspect characters
come to disturb their perfect order.

They sensed something fishy
about our presence.

When I think back on it now,
I think they were right.

We were indeed thieves,

intruders in a world
to which we didn't belong.

Wednesday, March 13.

India can sometimes be dizzying.

This man moving through the crowd
with faltering steps under a burning sun

in the midst
of an exuberant religious ceremony

is alone.

He bears a complicated framework

of hundreds of metal rods,
each pressing into his skin.

A long needle pierces his tongue.

He's obviously a yogi
practicing some form of asceticism,

one of the countless cruel methods
to mortify the flesh,

to control and dominate it.

There are thousands like him in India,

fanatics of the Absolute,

determined to escape
the cycle of reincarnation,

to free themselves
from the suffering of endless rebirth.

Saturday, March 9.

Near Mysore,
a colossal statue of Nandi the bull,

the god Shiva's holy mount.

Highly revered, Nandi acts
as intermediary between Shiva and men.

All day long, a steady stream
of peasant families visits the statue.

They perform a puja:

Prayer, offering and ritual ceremony,
all rolled into one.

The children's heads are shaved
according to ritual.

They're taught their religious duty
from infancy.

The sanctuary priests
distribute holy water

and receive offerings.

Even the poorest give money.

I'm always struck by the fanaticism
of the believers, especially the women.

Around Madras, there are huge temples
like this one every few miles.

It's here in the deep south

that one must seek
the living traces of Indian religion.

The heat is scorching.

The faithful nap
in the shade of the columns.

I envy them.

Even when awake,
southern Indians seem to me drowsy,

lifeless, absent.

Perhaps it's the climate.

According to essayist Nirad Chaudhuri,

India's climate, too cold or too hot,

too wet or too dry,
but always excessive,

gave birth to Indians'pessimism,
their rejection of the material world.

If so, the living conditions in India
created the Indian mindset,

and not the opposite.

Wednesday, March 20.

This man, whom we met
on the stairs of the Trichy temple,

offered to be our guide.

He's used to tourists.

He recites his speech by heart,
with expressive faces.

He's a temple employee.

I ask what his job is.

"My job is to draw water from
the Cauvery River below the temple.

The water's used
in the ritual bathing of the gods,

done daily by 18 priests."

He says he's had other professions.

He traveled across the country,
all the way to Burma.

He worked as interpreter,
accountant and typist.

"This is the cycle of life:
One day here, another day there.

Today I work carrying holy water.
That's the way it is."

Is he a Brahman?

Is he a priest,
or what we'd consider a priest?

He wears the sacred thread over his left
shoulder, the sign of the twice-born,

the Hindus of the upper castes.

This thread is magic circle,

protective barrier and divine link,
all rolled into one.

There are dozens like him
in every temple.

The temples are self-managed,
with a board of administrators.

They're generally very rich.
The faithful are generous.

"I'm not asking for a lot.

Give five more rupees.
It's not for me.

I'm still young and can climb
the temple stairs five times a day.

It's for my daughter's schooling.
She's 15 and learning to type."

We're fleeced like this
at every temple.

The priests'greed knows no bounds.

Tuesday, March 12.

We're at the Tirukalikundram temple,

perched on top of a big rock.

Each morning at precisely 11:30 a. m.,

the faithful make
the long and tiring climb

to attend the ceremony
of the white eagles.

Two eagles come to receive rice
from the hands of a priest.

The origin of the ceremony
is unknown.

It's taken place every day for hundreds
of years, always at the same time.

The remaining rice
is distributed among the faithful,

who vie for a few grains.

The priests are given money
in exchange.

Thieving priests,
gullible and generous believers,

hands extended to give and receive -
the same images everywhere.

It's the dark side of Indian religion.

Who profits from this?

The easy answer is the Brahmans.

They're at the summit
of the caste hierarchy,

and their traditional function
is the priesthood.

In reality,
contrary to what I first believed,

priesthood holds no prestige
for Brahmans.

It's even seen as degrading.

Brahmans often occupy
important positions in society.

Those who become priests
are the outcasts,

those who didn't succeed elsewhere,
incapable of anything else,

the poorest
and often the least educated.

Many priests can't read.

They recite prayers in Sanskrit

without understanding
the language of the holy texts.

What's more,
many priests aren't even Brahmans,

especially in the cult of Shiva.

India is complicated indeed.

Seated before the divine altars
like shopkeepers,

priests distribute powder for rituals

and rake in the rupees.

They present the offerings to the gods:
Coconuts, rice,

butter, incense, flowers, camphor.

Southern Brahmans,
whether priests or laymen,

always struck me
with their arrogance.

Haughty with their privileges,
stern, deeply religious,

they're strict vegetarians

and follow, even today,
countless taboos on impurity.

There are special restaurants
reserved for them in the cities,

and poor Brahmans,
if not priests, are often cooks.

In a remote corner
of the Tanjore temple,

far from the crowd,

a believer makes his puja

at a small statue of Ganesh,
son of Shiva.

Far from the priests
and crowds of fanatics,

this solitary believer, lost in devotion,
reconciles us with Hinduism.

I sense his profound connection
with his surroundings,

a peacefulness undisturbed
by our indiscreet approach.

I later learn
he's a minor civil servant

who comes every day
at the same time to pray.

These children, of the Brahman caste
but from poor peasant families,

are destined to be priests.

They learn thousands of verses
by heart from the Vedas,

the most ancient Indian writings.

Tradition says the Vedas
were not written by humans.

They existed before the gods.
They are divinity itself.

The Semitic tradition says,
"In the beginning was the Word",

and the Hindu responds
that the Absolute is sound.

The Vedas are made
to be recited and listened to.

For a long time, it was even
a sacrilege to write them down.

Monday, March 18.

A ceremony honoring Shiva
at the Tiruvannamalai ashram.

The phallic stone is purified
by dousing it with water, then milk.

It's covered with flowers,
offerings and precious objects,

and just like every morning,
the officiating priest recites

the thousand names
of this many-faceted god.

It's the first time
we've filmed a ceremony like this.

They're performed
in the temple's holy of holies,

usually very dark,
and closed to foreigners.

Shiva is the main figure in the
Indian pantheon, along with Vishnu.

His worship is particularly dominant
in the south of India.

He's a complex god,

with a thousand names
and a thousand faces too,

which I won't attempt to describe.

Essentially, he regulates cosmic order,

simultaneously creator and destroyer.

Through him all beings and things die.

Because he's also
the god of sexuality,

all beings are also reborn through him.

The phallic symbol of Shiva
is called a lingam.

An erect monolith,

its base is surrounded by a yoni,
the symbol of female genitalia.

Shiva isn't an Aryan god.
He's not in the Vedas.

He's a resurgence of the phallic god
of the first civilization in India.

The officiating priest presents
the purifying fire to the faithful.

They draw the ritual symbol
on their foreheads

with a greasy powder
made from sandalwood.

The Tiruvannamalai ashram is
one of the countless retreats in India

where disciples gather
around a spiritual teacher, a guru.

This one is named
after Sri Ramana Maharshi.

He died a few years ago.

This old man was his first disciple.

He explained a few
of the guru's concepts to us in Tamil.

What little I understood
of the English translation

seemed both simple and vague.

"Each of us must understand the Self,
the truth inside us.

We must separate the self from the flesh
in order to reach the Self.

The great teaching of the guru,

and the principal aim
of all the disciples,

is the ultimate knowledge of the Self."

Thursday, March 21.

We arrive at the temple of Madurai,
the most venerated in southern India.

It's immense.
Built in the 17th century,

it's dedicated to Meenakshi,
one of Shiva's wives.

There are 11 gopuram, or towers,
in the walls girding the temple,

which are also
entrances to the temple.

They're covered with statues
representing mythological stories:

A prodigious accumulation
of gods, goddesses and animals.

The statues are regularly
repainted in vivid colors,

to the great indignation
of Western tourists,

who forget that Greek temples
and medieval cathedrals

were brightly painted
in their heyday too.

Objections are raised
to our entering with our equipment.

While we wait between
two red-striped walls,

the question is debated
inside the temple.

The administrators
would like to let us film,

but only in the afternoon, when
the monument is closed to the faithful.

They're surprised to learn
we're more interested

in the faithful
than in the monument.

In the end it works out,
as it always does.

It's simply a matter
of time and money.

The temple is most active
in the early morning.

The citizens of Madurai come early,
before the heat becomes stifling.

They mix with pilgrims from across India,
beggars, and hermits,

all those who live outside of time,
without fixed abode,

stopping for several days
or several months at a temple.

This woman sitting between the double
walls was there when we arrived.

Practically immobile, she softly
murmurs some unknown litany.

When we leave in the evening,

she's in the exact same spot,
in the same position,

as if she hadn't moved all day.

The faithful perform
their ritual ablutions in the temple pool.

Indians are obsessed with water.

When we see how relentlessly
they scrub, douse and dunk themselves,

we're tempted to label them
the cleanest people in the world.

But it's not a question of hygiene.

This water is putrid,
swarming with larvae and fish.

They drink it because
it's the sacred water of the temple.

Purification by water
is an essential element of worship

in a religion and culture
principally founded

on criteria of pure and impure.

Rivers are sacred, and daily ablutions
punctuate believers'lives,

from dawn till dusk, birth till death.

Indians scoff at hygiene.

Perhaps they think the Western notion
of hygiene leads to sterility.

Our practice of hygiene consists of killing
life, cutting ourselves off from nature,

isolated in a nice, clean world
all by ourselves.

That's not the way it is here.

An Indian calmly explained that
the water of the Ganges was sacred

and thus posed absolutely
no danger to the faithful.

Yet during our visit,

a tributary near a pilgrimage site
became polluted,

resulting in an epidemic.

This seemed to prove
Mark Twain was wrong

when he declared that
the water of the Ganges was so dirty

that even germs couldn't survive.

Each Indian temple has
a holy of holies, the garbagriha,

a dark, narrow chamber where the image
of the temple's appointed deity is kept.

Non-Hindus are forbidden to enter,

as were Hindus of the lower castes
until fairly recently.

The rest of the temple
is composed of hallways, stairs,

walls, colonnades, pools -

an architectural composite
in the image of this multiform religion,

built by architects
versed in geomancy.

Crowds of believers
and throngs of priests,

countless rituals,
and intense spiritual life -

it reminds us of medieval Christianity
when it was a living religion,

when the house of God
was the house of men,

a refuge, a place of rest,
a free zone.

Atheism doesn't really exist in India.

No one ever asks
if you believe in God.

They ask what religion you are.

When some truckers once gave us
a ride after our car broke down,

they made a quick stop.

It wasn't for a drink, as I'd thought,

but to do a quick puja
at a roadside temple.

The adherence of an entire population
was even more striking

when I realized Hinduism isn't unified,
with no central leadership,

no supreme leader,
like the pope for the Catholics.

The gods, rituals and worship
are infinitely varied,

as are the basic beliefs.

In a village in Rajasthan,

there's a temple
where believers worship rats.

They give the rats
pounds of grain each day,

grain they desperately need
themselves.

Everywhere in the temple,
at the altars of countless gods,

the faithful tirelessly repeat
these strange gestures.

Everyone performs their own puja,

a personal ceremony
to a specific god of their choice.

We stayed there for hours,
leaning against the columns,

watching and filming
without understanding.

These gestures can seem funny,

and we could have easily
exaggerated their comic aspect

and made a sarcastic portrayal
of fetishism and excessive piety.

But we didn't want to.

We show them to you
as we filmed them.

You decide whether
they're ludicrous or admirable.

What I personally found
especially striking here

was each believer's solitude,
which seems so lacking

from social life in India.

Perhaps religion
offers them an outlet,

a chance to finally be alone
through worship.

Perhaps prayer is
their only moment of freedom.

In any case, these southern Indians,
normally so drowsy and dull,

are unrecognizable.

In the presence of their gods,
they become attentive, lively, dynamic.

Perhaps the key is found
in the doctrine of transmigration,

the fundamental belief of India.

After death,
each soul returns to earth

and reincarnates in other bodies
indefinitely.

The ultimate aim of the religion
is to end this eternal cycle,

but failing to end it,

the faithful try,
through devotion and good deeds,

to improve their lot
in their next existence,

for each new incarnation
is a verdict on the previous one.

This belief justifies the caste system.

Everyone has a place in the hierarchy
based on the quality of their previous life,

and therefore, they must accept it.

Saturday, March 30.

We reach Rameswaram,
at the extreme tip of India,

where boats set sail for Ceylon.

This colossal temple,
with its mile-Iong colonnades,

is dedicated to Rama,
legendary hero of the Ramayana.

"I left my family
and everything behind.

I've been here for three months

to cure myself of mental problems.

I've visited many temples
since beginning my journey.

I plan to stay here
another six months, until October.

I pray to the Lord. When he has
healed me, I'll return home."

This man, whom we met
in the corridors of the temple,

speaks six languages.

He was a navy officer
and a civil servant on the railroads.

Now he's chosen to be a hermit
and beg for his food.

There are millions like him
throughout India

who, for various reasons,
have left everything behind.

Many of these renunciants
are old men

who married, fathered children
and practiced a profession.

At the end of their lives,
having fulfilled their social contract,

they take to the road,
wanderers until their death.

It's a holy custom.

Even more puzzling are the sadhu,

who, from earliest childhood,
live on the fringes of society.

They're grouped into different sects,
each with precise rituals and customs,

often extremely weird,
a mix of occultism and magic.

This sadhu, whom we met at Tanjore,
recited the temples he'd visited

all across India.

They're bizarre,
sometimes even frightening.

Among them are many social misfits,
unstable and abnormal people,

as if society got rid of them
by sending them out on the road.

And yet the existence
of these millions of renunciants

is an essential aspect of Hinduism:

The antithesis of the caste system,

a sort of safety valve
for such a restrictive world.

A Hindu living by society's rules
is oppressed.

His life is spent
in a suffocating hierarchy,

a straitjacket of rights and duties.

If he seeks escape,
a freedom no one can deny him,

he becomes a hermit.

He leaves behind society
and its rules

and chooses to undertake
his own salvation.

At the same time,
he risks everything.

By devoting himself to religion,

he attempts to escape the cycle
of reincarnation once and for all,

to never return to this world
of suffering and illusion,

to finally know the ineffable joy
of being one with the universe.

This man was one among
the thousands we encountered.

I don't know where he came from
nor where he's going.

We circled around him
with the camera.

He continued on,
never even glancing our way.

He follows his path, staring
fixedly ahead. He is elsewhere.

At Rameswaram,
at the temple entrance,

beggars wait for the faithful to exit.

Among them are many sadhu
and renunciants.

Begging is a sacred act,
and the faithful are obliged to give alms,

like this fussy believer,

who counts the beggars
before distributing his meager alms.

I've reached a point
where this doesn't shock me.

Maybe it's from seeing
similar scenes so often.

Besides, that day,
I was in no mood to judge.

These beggars,
many who beg voluntarily,

symbolize the renunciation of
the material world and physical reality,

a permanent feature of India.

They're part of a whole one must either
accept or reject in its entirety.

Though we often saw beggars,

we were rarely able to film them.

Someone always intervened,

always someone who spoke English,
an Indian from the city.

The beggars saw no reason
we shouldn't film their everyday life.

But the Anglicized Indians,
who'd learned to think like us,

were ashamed.

Not ashamed that it existed-
because it didn't shock them -

but ashamed we were filming it.

Nearby, this woman
climbs the stairway

of a small shrine
set apart from the main temple.

According to the Ramayana,
the great Indian epic,

this is where
the hero Rama returned to India

with his army of monkeys

after killing the giant Ravana,
king of Ceylon.

A footprint of Rama
is preserved in this shrine.

This woman is 87 years old.

She travels throughout India
from one holy place to the next,

accompanied by her family
and disciples,

who claim she has divine vision,

an intimate connection
with the hereafter.

I no longer know what to think.

At first, I judged
this religion rationally

and saw only fetishism
and exploitation.

Then, gradually,
I started going deeper.

This old woman speaks to the gods -
or believes she does. It doesn't matter.

I look on and listen, fascinated.

You peasants, met at dawn
on a remote road in southern India,

your life flows imperceptibly

to a rhythm different from ours,

from the minutes and seconds
we consider so valuable.

At this point in our journey
we've almost found your rhythm.

It was very hot.

In the period before the monsoons,

activity is limited
to early and late in the day.

We left the main roads
and gave up all itinerary.

Our car became a vessel
that had cast off its moorings.

We went where the winds of chance
blew us, sleeping anywhere,

our only goal to lose ourselves
in the infinity of Indian villages.

We became vegetarians,
because no one eats meat here.

We lived almost as they did.

Europe was far away.
We received no mail or newspapers.

We'd spend entire days without filming,

as if it was no longer
what mattered.

Freed from my habitual anxiety
and dissatisfaction,

I lived in the present moment.

We wanted to experience things,
not understand them.

For instance, these priests officiating
on the beach near a temple

use gestures we don't understand,

but that no longer matters.

We may not understand these people,
but we're instinctively connected to them,

sharing their link with nature.

Letting ourselves go
in their presence,

we feel as if we've rediscovered
something we'd lost.

Nothing shocked me anymore,

for I'd accepted another
perspective on the world.

It's not about explaining
or dominating the world,

but being a part of it,
fitting into it.

Watching them perform
simple gestures as if they were rituals,

strange ideas came to mind.

If happiness is defined
as a sense of balance and bliss,

being in harmony with one's
surroundings, interior peace,

then these Indian peasants
are happier than us,

who've destroyed nature

and do battle with time in the absurd
pursuit of material well-being,

in the end sharing only
our Ioneliness.

"Man must lose himself in the universe
like an elephant in the forest,

a fish in the sea, a bird in the sky",
says one of their texts.

At the source of the Cauvery,
the holy river of southern India,

a young priest performs
the dawn rituals.

There's something magical
in the precision of his gestures.

I came to accept everything
in unblinking observation.

One afternoon, we came upon
the unreal vision of this man

pushing a sewing machine
down a deserted road.

In France, this would be quite surreal.
Here, we watch without comment.

As if in a hallucinatory dream,

we journeyed beyond reason,

and I wondered if fate
didn't have a hand in it all.

Monday, April 9.

We arrive in Trivandrum,
capital of Kerala.

We came back to mail,
newspapers and problems.

Our short spell in the world
beyond time is over,

and yet, in the middle of the city,
another fantastic vision.

These bats have
a wingspan of three feet.

No one kills them
or shoos them away.

They're left peacefully in their trees
in the midst of this modern city.

Respect for life in all forms
is a constant in India.

It explains why so many Indians
are vegetarians,

and also why followers of certain sects
refuse to farm the land.

The plow moving through the soil
could kill worms and insects.

Tuesday, April 10.
We're still not awake.

On a roadside in Kerala,

these piles of railroad cars,

a rusty scrap heap
reaching to the sky,

seems as if it's always existed,
a part of the landscape,

like ruins of some ancient civilization.

The truth is much plainer:

It's a freight train that derailed
on a bridge.

No one was killed,
but it caused serious damage.

Actually, our first impression
was correct.

Indian railroads are a vestige
of the colonial past,

of Kipling and Victorian England.

To consolidate
their economic and military control,

the English built
a vast railroad network

that remains the primary means
of transportation in India today.

Not much has changed
since they left.

The trains are slow
and sometimes antiquated,

managed by a huge bureaucracy,
a state unto itself.

Today, India's rail network
is twice as large as China's.

Wednesday, April 11.

Once again we stumble
upon the ghost of colonial England.

These young women work
in a tea plantation

at an altitude of 3.000 feet
in the mountains of Kerala.

This 12.000-acre plantation
belongs to an English company,

who operates it
along purely capitalistic lines.

The plantation's employees
live and eat here.

Their salaries are meager,

but they save every penny
for their dowry.

After a few years,

they return to their villages to marry.

Each worker has a long rod
that's laid on top of the bushes.

She picks any leaves
higher than the rod.

The harvest continues year-round
as the leaves grow back.

The work is well-planned,
the yield excellent.

In the plantation's small factory,
the leaves are dried, sorted and cut.

The tea is then sent to a nearby port,
where it's shipped to England.

Thus the beauty of the landscape
and gestures

hides a particularly harsh form
of neocolonialism.

As often in India,
the scene can be seen in two ways.

It all depends on how you look.

Friday, April 12.

An artificial lake studded with
submerged trees, seemingly petrified.

We're in the forest
and wildlife sanctuary of Periyar.

There are millions of animals:
Deer, boar, buffalo, elephants.

We spent several days in this paradise.

It's a wonderful place for a vacation.

Except that it was all fake,
and we felt it.

It wasn't real nature,
but nature preserved.

Outside of sanctuaries like this one,

it's almost impossible to see
wild elephants in India today.

On our way to the coast,
we filmed other elephants,

but they're slaves.

They work in a lumberyard
next to a sawmill.

Many work sites like this exist
in southern India

where elephants are used for labor.

Intelligent, obedient
and very powerful,

they cost less
than a bulldozer or tractor.

Elephants have almost disappeared.

In India, like everywhere,
man's destroying the environment,

natural habitats and wildlife.

The modern world,
demographic pressure

and new means of transport

all reduce, day by day,
the area of virgin forest.

It's slashed and burned
for farming and industry.

Men, grown too numerous
and powerful,

push the animals back
further and further, into extinction.

The India of The Jungle Book,

a wildlife paradise for so long,

can't escape this trend.

Throughout our journey,

like naÔ: Ve Europeans seeking
the stories of their childhood,

we'd hoped to see a tiger.

Reality's cruel joke:
This is the only tiger we came across.

A well-behaved tiger
at the Mysore Zoo

who purrs as his keeper
treats him like a big kitty.

The truth is there are
almost no tigers left in India.

The last ones are killed
on a sort of safari

called a shikar here.

If you're very rich
and have some free time,

they'll organize beaters
across a large area

to statistically guarantee you
a tiger to kill.

They'll see to every detail,

including all amenities,
down to your cold drinks.

Two hundred people will join in
and flush the tiger out for you.

They'll even drug him
to make him easier prey.

Monday, April 16.

Near the city of Cochin, on the sea,

we discover a gorgeous landscape
of lagoons and canals.

Water, coconut palms
and an infinite number of islands

compose a fluid landscape
where water and earth blend.

A picture postcard of the tropics,

a movie set for a Conrad story,

a place tourists dream of,
as yet intact,

but which certainly won't remain
unexploited for long.

We heard them from far off.

They've set up under the trees by a
small temple on the edge of the lagoon.

His face is covered
with bright green makeup.

Dancer, singer and mime,
he tells a story from Indian mythology.

Time to come back to earth.

Kerala, which seems
a wonderful place to live,

is in reality severely overpopulated.

Population density is roughly
1.200 habitants per square mile,

a frightening statistic considering
that a great deal of Kerala

is practically uninhabited,
nonarable mountains.

Industry is practically nonexistent.

The port of Cochin,
sheltered by an island,

is a natural anchorage that has hosted
great navigators throughout history,

from the Sumerians
to the Portuguese.

Today it stagnates in the melancholy
atmosphere of a colonial trading post.

The anchorage of Cochin
is surrounded by huge nets,

like spiderwebs
suspended over the water.

They call them "Chinese nets"here.

Installed on permanent platforms,
they're plunged into the sea,

then pulled up using big suspended
rocks as counterweights.

Men raise and lower the nets
tirelessly throughout high tide.

It makes a beautiful postcard.

It will certainly draw tourists,
if any appear,

but the catch is meager,

and the few fish in the net
are fought over

by birds and fishermen.

Less archaic methods of fishing
are used in Kerala too.

The government makes a great effort
to promote open-sea trawl fishing.

It's more innovative than it seems,

because coastal fishermen seem
very reluctant to leave the shore.

Perhaps they aren't cut out
to be sailors.

Kerala's farms don't produce enough
to meet the needs of the population.

Rice and grain must be imported
from other regions of India,

which causes
considerable political problems.

The trawlers bring in
a catch of high-quality shrimp

to be processed in this factory.

Sorted, packed in ice and packaged,

they're then shipped to Europe by air.

The workforce is exclusively feminine.

With the area's rampant
unemployment and overpopulation,

nothing is automated.

These young women working
shoulder to shoulder are Catholics.

Almost the entire Christian population
of India is concentrated in Kerala,

almost a quarter
of the state's population.

It's a very old community, dating
from when St. Thomas the Apostle

came to convert the Indians,
according to tradition.

Tuesday, April 17.
We return to the lagoons.

In these villages,
where little farming is done,

the peasants live off coconut palms.

Even the bark is used.

It's soaked for six months,

then beaten and separated
into fibers,

which the women untangle
and spin on primitive wheels.

It's not a first-rate raw material,

but it serves
for string and rough mats.

To take advantage of this archaic industry,
one of their main resources,

certain villages have joined
together in cooperatives,

a collective society
in embryonic form.

But here, like just about everywhere,

production is controlled
by the landowners and merchants,

who own the coconut palms
and to whom the peasants are indebted.

This tropical paradise
is also a hell on earth.

Nonetheless, these poor
and exploited peasants

are the most advanced in India,
and the best educated.

Kerala's literacy rate
is the highest in the country.

So it's hardly surprising that
they're also the most politically aware.

It's here, and in Bengal,

that the largest Communist parties
in India are found.

The prime minister of Kerala
is a Communist.

I had a lot of doubts
about the Indian Communists.

Throughout our journey,
I interviewed party leaders

on their true strength in the country,
their tactics,

their separation
into two large rival parties,

which, oddly, are called "Left
Communists"and "Right Communists."

On this split, which occurred in 1966,

I questioned Namboodiripad,
prime minister of Kerala,

and a Left Communist.

"The split was caused by the issue
of our internal policies.

Some wanted to collaborate
with the Congress Party,

the party currently in power
in New Delhi.

We split with them."

However, I'd heard that
Indian Communists

were divided into two camps:
Pro-Russian and pro-Chinese.

Jyoti Basu, general secretary of
the Right Communist Party in Bengal,

rejects this explanation.

"I don't think ideological differences

in the international
Communist movement

caused our split.

That explanation serves
as anti-Communist propaganda."

Mrs. Gouri Thomas,
food minister in Kerala,

is a picturesque example of the split.

She's a Left Communist,

while her husband, T. V. Thomas,
a minister in the same government,

is a Right Communist.

Apparently it doesn't stop them
from forming a solid couple.

The Communists aren't the only ones
in power in Kerala.

Namboodiripad heads
a coalition of ministers

that includes Marxists
and non-Marxists.

So he often has to compromise.

"The various parties of the coalition
have agreed on a basic program

to try to solve the most
urgent problems of Kerala.

For the moment we've abandoned
the revolutionary objectives of our party."

Mohammad Koya illustrates
the paradox of this coalition.

He belongs to the Muslim League,

which represents the Muslim minority
in the north of Kerala.

The League was previously allied
with the Congress Party.

Today, Koya is minister of education
in the Namboodiripad government,

but ideologically he shares
no common ground with the Communists.

After the 1967 elections,

nine of the 17 major states in India
were led by coalitions like this one.

The only thing uniting them is their
common enemy, the Congress Party,

which has dominated Indian politics
since independence,

the party of Gandhi and Nehru,

today weakened and divided,
but still very powerful.

These anti-Congress coalitions
are too eclectic

and have met with varying success.

They can contain both extreme
right-wing parties and Communists.

This is justified
by tactical considerations.

"We must take part in Parliament
and participate in elections,

but at the same time we must enlarge
our extra-parliamentary activities."

Sunday, April 15.

A large Communist demonstration
in Trivandrum, Kerala's capital.

100.000 peasants, trucked
into the capital, gather in the rain

and parade
with impressive orderliness.

The demonstration
has two contradictory aims:

On one hand, to support
Namboodiripad and his government -

it's practically an official parade,
supported by the government -

but on the other hand, slogans
demand real agricultural reform.

But revolutionary action isn't
currently on the government's agenda,

and only the Communists support it.

The contradictions go even further:

Prime Minister Namboodiripad
tries by every means

to attract new industry to Kerala.

To calm nervous capitalists,
he must guarantee social stability.

But Communist Party leader
Namboodiripad can't fight

the strikes and union actions.

"I don't think
we can achieve our goals

in the framework
of parliamentary democracy.

The day will come when village
peasants must organize themselves

and collaborate
with the urban proletariat.

This communal action
is the only way things will change."

Gopal speaks in the future tense.

But when I see thousands of peasants
demonstrating in perfect ranks,

I tell myself the great day
is drawing near.

A Maoist-style revolution
seems inevitable,

but I know that Kerala is an exception.

In general, the Indian peasant class
is barely politicized.

However, there are farmers'revolts
on a local scale.

One of these, in 1967
in Naxalbari in northern Bengal,

caused quite a stir
among Left Communists.

"It was really a big peasant movement,
no doubt,

but we feel this movement was
sidetracked by certain of our comrades,

who now call themselves Naxalites.

We threw them out of the party

because we consider them
to be adventurers,

smooth talkers who don't truly
represent the peasant population.

They would have led
our movement into disaster."

His words remind me of something.

Indian Communists have their leftists
too, and they judge them severely.

"You see, the Naxalbari movement
could succeed

as long as it limited itself
to equal redistribution of land

and remained a movement
against landowners.

Unfortunately, the leaders
tried to stage an armed insurrection

to seize power.

But in only part of a district,
on a purely local level,

it's impossible to take power,
even with weapons."

So even though Gopal
is a peasant leader,

he doesn't believe a Maoist-style
insurrection would ever work.

Mrs. Ranjekar, councilwoman
in Bombay, is just as categorical.

"At this time, the Indian people don't feel
armed insurrection is the solution.

They have faith in parliamentary
democracy, and we must respect that.

The peasants aren't ready
for an armed uprising.

It would lead to violent repression.

The party would be outlawed.
It wouldn't solve anything.

There's a big difference
between India and China.

At the time of the Chinese revolution,
China was chiefly agricultural.

It had no industry or railroads,

and the police couldn't intervene
in the countryside.

In India today, industry and railroads
are highly developed.

Each country
has different characteristics,

and it's impossible to predict
the form India's revolution will take."

Mrs. Ranjekar's statements
surprise me.

To hear that India
is highly industrialized,

when I know that four-fifths
of the population live in villages,

leads me to believe
that the orthodox Communists

don't really want a peasant revolution.

Since my departure, a third Communist
party has been created in India.

This one is openly supported
by the Chinese,

whose radio brands the Namboodiripad
and Basu camps "imperialist lackeys."

This third party, born from the split
provoked by the Naxalbari uprising,

is in favor of an immediate
armed uprising.

What happened in Vietnam
can happen in India.

Of course we stopped
and followed the elephant.

Dressed in ceremonial regalia,

it was the holy elephant of a nearby
temple celebrating its annual festival.

He goes from house to house,
where he's worshipped and then fed.

Here where almost everyone is hungry,
each house prepared a bucket of grain.

I'm told this is a Communist village,

but the temple festival
isn't celebrated any less fervently.

I remember an announcement
I saw in a newspaper in Calcutta:

"Due to the festival
for the goddess Saraswati,

meetings of the Left Communist Party

are postponed until next week."

It's easy to see why Indian Communists
never attack religion here head-on.

I found the festival sad-
a subjective impression, to be sure.

After encountering
so many contradictions in India,

all else seemed trivial to me.

The elephant returns to the temple,
where the entire village waits.

Young girls wait
along the path to the temple,

their faces covered with rice powder.

They're waiting for a minister
who promised to attend. A Communist.

He's late.

Village girls with your fixed stares,
what are you really waiting for?

I still don't understand.