Exploring Local Narratives in Indian Cinema

This has nothing at all to do with independence

Hmm, okay.

or India's freedom struggle.

Okay.

Because the characters I portray in Ranabali

have no idea how large the country really is.

Hmm.

For them, it's their village and the surrounding hamlet. At most,

they may not know where Madras is.

They're characters who think it's somewhere at the edge of the earth, and beyond that, there are only oceans.

That's how they are.

Hmm.

So these characters have no sense of nationhood.

What they understand is that this film is like micro to mac—macro to mic—

sorry, it's kind of a micro-to-macro

Hmm.

relationship. A village itself is a country.

Hmm.

Your village, your boundaries, your people, whatever

attitude you have toward protecting them,

applies to the country.

Hmm.

That's the

philosophy.

Hmm.

But it isn't about all of India.

However—

Oh! Okay.

This point resonates with every village.

That means it is a problem that has crushed every village in India.

Mm.

This is the wound every state bears. Every…

Whatever culture you go into, they— because the British

didn’t cause only the Madras famine. There were about 30 such famines.

Oh, God!

And every state was affected. So,

Go to any village and ask about their ancestors’ stories, and you’ll find famine in them.

They suffered through famine so terribly. So many people died.

There are those stories, those statistics.

A man-made famine.

A man-made famine, especially

one caused by the British. So, it’s a story everyone can relate to.

So I would never say this is the story of this country. It is the story of a village.

Mm.

So, every village’s story is reflected in it. So, if every village has a

Ranabali, how would they connect?

So, it is a universal story like that.