The word of pictures

And Kalidas is not the only writer to suffer this indifferent fate. Even information on 20th century authors is hard to come by. "There’s little documentation of readable authors, even of voices that lived and died in recent times," says Professor K Satchidanand, secretary of the Sahitya Kala Akademi. Noting this lacunae, the Akademi took upon the onus to set the record straight — to preserve the present, since it is too late to rectify the past. Now, if you want to know more about P L Deshpande, Vinda Karandikar, Amrita Pritam or Vinayak Krishna Gokak — reputedauthors of the 20th century — you no longer have to clear dusty cobwebs. Films — audio visual references — on these authors are ready for immediate reference.

The Akademi has started filming the lives of Indian authors. It has already made 12 films and 20 more names are on the list. In a festival — Imaging The Word — organised by the Akademi, lovers of the written word will see films on seven writers — Amrita Pritam, Vinda Karandikar, Akhtar-Ul-Iman, Vinayak Gokak, Balamaniyamma, Takazhi Sivasankara and Gopalakrishna Adiga — writers that make the Indian literature scape a glorious one.

"We realised that there are names which may be lost in the near future," says Satchidanand. A list of names, of the most important living authors, was drawn at the Akademi. Seniority was no bar and the most important criteria was, of course, work.

The same criteria, more or less, applied to the film makers too. Besides being good at their work, the film makers were required to be interested in language andliterature. Girish Karnad, Sayeed Mirza and the like were among the film makers commissioned to make the films. "We preferred film makers who knew the language of the author they were filming. At least two of them — Karnad and Prasanna — are writers themselves. All the film makers we approached welcomed the concept," says Satchidanand.

Sayeed Mirza, the maker of the film on Urdu poet Akhtar-Ul-Iman, says, "The film was a great challenge. All I had was the text of the poet. And Iman in particular is a very textual poet, very austere." Mirza’s knowledge of the Urdu language did help him during the making of the film.

The hour-long films were sanctioned a budget of Rs five lakh each. And after that cheque was issued, the film makers were given a free hand to approach their subject. That’s exactly why Mirza could concentrate solely on Iman’s work. Most of the other films have taken an autobiographical approach. But critical appreciation is still the focus. "The aim was to capture something meaningful thatcannot be captured in writing. This only celluloid can manage," says Satchidanand.

He is not worried about whether the films will have mass appeal. The films, he says, may be given to UGC, Bharat Bhavan, Doordarshan or private channels. Mirza insists, "Festivals such as these are essentially cerebral activities — by nature they are bound to be restrictive as far as mass appeal is concerned. So what’s wrong with that?"