GUWAHATI, Feb 4 (Agencies): The plight of villages on the Indo-Bangladesh border trapped from sunset to sunrise behind large iron gates and fencing for nearly 60 years now, has been made into a film by jounalist film-maker Mrinal Talukdar.
'Nobody's Man', a 19 minute docu-feature on two such villages, Jharapata and Laphasai - one predominantly Hindu and the other Muslim, portrays the fate of 60 families living perennially under night curfew since the creation of separate countries.
It will be screened at the ongoing Mumbai International Festival.
An iron gate in a huge barbed fencing to stop infiltration and smuggling from across the border opens at 6:00 am with villagers stepping out for daily chores after registering themselves with the BSF posted just outside.
The gate closes sharp at 6:00 pm by which time the villagers must return for another night behind barbed wires.
The journalist in Talukdar always wanted to highlight the plight of these villagers in the print media but he realised that the angst and agony of these peple could be best captured through the visual medium.
"The plight of these villages was first narrated to me by All Assam Students' Union advisor Dr Samujjal Bhattacharya and senior bureaucrat G K Pillai about ten years ago and it stayed with me", said Talukdar.
"The desire to make the film gained strength during the past few years but the making of the film is another story of trial and struggle", he said.
"The file seeking permission to film in these sectors flew for more than eight months between Guwahati, Delhi, Kolkata, Tripura and other places before it was finally cleared", he added.
The actual film shooting was also a revealing experience with the BSF personnel extending warm cooperation while the Bangladesh Rifles, on the other side of the border, adopting an aggressive stance, even threatening to shoot at them on several occasions, he said.
Overcoming these irritants, Talukdar and his crew captured poignant shots of various aspects of the daily struggle of these two villages to survive against all odds.
Villagers going to market, children to schools, sick to the hospital, women to collect firewood- 'Nobody's Man' captures all without a hitch but it is the return journey-the hurry to reach home before the iron gate closes that strikes a chord in the viewers' heart.
What leaves a permanent imprint on the viewer's mind is a villager's heart-rending cry- "Are we really independent? Are we really free? Whereever we go and whatever urgent work we may have, we must return before the gate closes and report to the BSF about our return.
We are leading a shackled life and many people are trying to break free by leaving their home and hearth".
Laphasai village is bisected by the zero line of the International boundary which passes through a pond and its owner cannot even fish on the other side of his own property.
Former Director General of BSF R S Mooshahary, who has been interviewed in the film, says that there are more than a lakh people trapped in this way along the Indo-Bangla border and there is no solution in sight as the need to guard the border overrides all other concerns for the mandarins at the Centre.
So for the people of Jharapata and Laphasai along with hundred other villages along the border, it is a life perennially behind iron gates and fences with only half a day of freedom.
