Divine Retreat

Tej Singh,tall and lanky,looks almost awkward standing alone by a door while the small cottage room fills up with people,among them a petite woman with a camera. A slight shiver passes through his body and,immediately,the room falls silent. As everyone watches,Singh is gripped by a fierce paroxysm and begins to undergo a transformation — the convulsions become stronger,even violent,and a guttural voice emerges from deep within him. An unknown energy courses through the room. He is no longer Tej Singh; it is the Snake God that stands before the people. The camera-wielding woman— award-winning documentary filmmaker Anu Malhotra — finds herself overcome. Malhotra captures her own urban reaction to an ancient ritual in her film Shamans of the Himalayas,which was released in Delhi on October 19.

A veteran of documentaries such as Konyak of Nagaland,about head hunters,and Apatani of Arunachal Pradesh,about an ancient tribe,Malhotra,who is in her early forties,treats every documentary as a journey that helps her discover the self. Shamans of the Himalayas was part of that quest. The filmmaker,counted among the top producers-directors of the country,spent close to a year in Kullu Valley,known as Dev Bhoomi,where every village is home to deities and the shaman is the medium between them and the faithful. “In India,shamanism is still prevalent unlike in the West where it was snuffed out when the great religions took root,” said Dr Karan Singh at the launch of the film.

Shot over four schedules in the picturesque mountain villages,the film captures the most powerful shamans at work — Gur Tularam,who is the shaman of Hadimba Devi (wife of Bhim from the Mahabharata),the pooch or divination sessions of Gur Hardayal as well as Tuli Devi,the only woman shaman of the valley,among others. Interestingly,Malhotra had to seek permission from the “devi” or “devta” to film divination and exorcism sessions,making her’s a rare film documentation of these rituals. Psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakkar and anthropologist William Sax provide the scientific balance. “But for me,shooting the shamans proved to be an experience that captured how the ordinary and the occult coexist today,as they have for centuries,” says Malhotra.

Malhotra holds under her belt television shows like Namaste India and Indian Holiday,as well as the first series of the Incredible India campaign (She is credited with coining the phrase that’s come to characterise Indian tourism). She brings her technical and storytelling experience into the 100-minute documentary,where the narrative follows the filmmaker as she exits an airport and begins her exploration into the mystical shamans.

Malhotra’s film includes the Maharaja of Jodhpur,about Gaj Singh II of Marwar-Jodhpur,which won the Best Documentary and Music Award at the Indian Telly Awards in 2006 as well as the Best Documentary and Cinematography Award of the Indian Documentary Producers Association in 2005.