Freedom Fight’s Asangadithar and Prajapathiku Thooran Muttiyapol: On the politics of human excreta

“I was doing a documentary named Asangadithar based on the movement led by Viji Palithodi for the urgent need of toilets for the unorganised women working in Kozhikode Mittayitheruvu. The editing work of that project was ongoing. It was during that time Jeo Baby contacted me, sharing his idea of doing an anthology. So I decided to fictionalise the documentary I was doing. I actually recreated everything for the movie and haven’t used any footage from the original documentary I was working on,” said Asangadithar director Kunjila Mascillamani. Jithin Issac was on Jeo’s radar since the former’s first movie Attention Please was selected for last year’s IFFK (International film Festival of Kerala) and it was widely discussed in the festival circuit. “Since watching The Great Indian Kitchen, I wanted to meet Jeo. And he also has heard about Attention Please. So he contacted me sharing his idea to do an anthology and asked me to develop content as per my wish,” said Jithin.

Asangadithar is a movie that discusses the morality aspect and health concerns faced by women when it comes to the inevitable human need to urinate. Some of the scenes in the movie portray the difficulties faced by women who don’t have any toilet facility in the places they work and have to hold their urinary urges during long working hours. There’s one scene in the movie where the character played by Srinda has to carry a plastic bottle to her work place every day just so that she can relieve herself. These are some unimaginably honest scenes which show the plight of women in oppressive working conditions. “I think those scenes are really important to show because that was the real situation experienced by women working in unorganised sector in small shops. I created such scenes after taking testimonies from women who went through such experiences. So to do justice to their real life experience, I had to shoot it as such,” said Kunjilla.

On the other hand, Jithin uses highly dramatised style to show the discrimination and plight of manual scavengers in his movie. Many scenes especially the one where the minister’s character played by Siddharth Siva uses a manual scavenger’s head as a closet to quench his ‘revenge’ is a hard watch for light-hearted viewers. “See the subject we chose is disturbing. The people who clean septic tanks are not allowed inside our homes or even near us and I wanted to present that discrimination through our movie,” said Jithin. “There’s a poem sung by the minister’s character to sadistically ridicule manual scavengers which roughly translates into: ‘in a world where one feels disgusted to touch their own shit, how great are the people who carry the shit of other people.’ That’s the attitude of privileged people seeing the lives of people engaged in manual scavenging. I wanted to expose this sadistic hypocrisy among us,” he added. On the use of black and white frames for the movie, Jithin said, “We have used black and white for two reasons. Firstly, to tone down the disgusting element and secondly to show the contrast of black and white. White is often associated with purity and is often the dress code of our politicians while black is historically used for impure objects. But the movie clearly shows how polluted are the minds of people who cover themselves in white like the politicians we see”.

Another interesting thing about Asangadithar was the casting of Viji Palithodi as herself in the movie. A activist at heart, Viji was at the forefront of many movements in Mittayitherivu (a major street shopping centre in Kozhikode district, Kerala).”Viji chechi has acted in one of my short films titled Pathu. So I know her from way before this movie. Even the documentary I was working on was mostly based on Viji chechi’s work. I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing that character. As she already worked with me in a short film, I went ahead with her in this movie also, and she didn’t hesitate,” said Kunjilla.

On the research done in the field of manual scavenging, Jithin observes that most people working as manual scavengers in Kerala have Tamil roots. “They just see it as a profession. But what I understand is if they say we won’t do this job anymore, all of us will have to find another way to clean our septic tanks. Think about it before turning your face against them in haste next time,” said Jithin.