Gods in Motion

“It began in the ’70s, when the mandals started thinking of new methods to attract crowds,” says Tharaney, “Later, political parties saw it as a means to convey their ideas. This, in some ways, is an extension of the purpose behind the celebrations — when Lokmanya Tilak started the trend of Ganapati festivities, his reasons were political.”

Tharaney comes from a background of research and production, including international documentaries and cultural projects. For Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely (2013), he worked as a researcher and for the award-winning documentary John and Jane (2005) by the same director, he was the executive producer.

But it’s his stint with French author Emmanuel Grimaud on his book on automatons that gave Tharaney the idea for the documentary. Grimaud too, is making a film on the same topic, albeit with a different approach. For the 41-year-old, the film is a means to explore popular subculture by showcasing the working of the automaton industry, where government-employed engineers work in offices by day and moonlight as idol makers at night.

The automatons, however, are not decorative objects; they come as part of a thematic package that the makers rent out to the pandals. The makers create the packages based on a social message that is “performed” by automatons through a mythological skit. A narration, recorded in a studio, plays out from a CD alongside. While Tharaney shows the process of manufacturing in depth, he is particularly interested in the “plots” by the makers.

“The message is usually conveyed through ‘dharmik’ stories like that of Prahlad or Sai Baba’s miracles. I wanted to document the process not in a conventional way, instead by infusing it with drama,” says Tharaney.

The drama in his yet-untitled film, which received a grant last year by the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), comes from a fictional thread. It follows one particular automaton, a bizarre creation that Tharaney came across while he was working with Grimaud in 2008. “It’s a variation the maker brought to the matsyavatara, a mythological figure depicting Vishnu’s avatar as a hybrid of man and fish. He swapped the upper part of the human body with that of the lower part of the fish. But this didn’t work in his favour and the pandals rejected it,” says the director. This installation Tharaney takes on the streets of Mumbai to see if it gets a mandal’s acceptance eventually, raising bigger questions about the idea of god and idol worship. While Tharaney expects to complete the film by early next year, he also plans to make a multimedia installation with the materials collected for the film.

The director has also shot with different automaton makers and mandals across Maharashtra. A regular feature in Mumbai’s Ganapati celebrations, automatons are on their way out. “It seems like automatons are going out of fashion. Organisers are more interested in doing something new, like building palace sets around the idol,” he says, “It is, however, still big in other cities and suburbs of Maharashtra.”

sankhayan.ghosh@expressindia.com