Far from a wasteful endeavour

Moist-eyed and silent, the conservancy workers present at the screening are numbed on watching Like Dust We Rise (LDWR). Part of a series of six films by the students of School of Media and Cultural Studies (SMCS) at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) that raise questions on sustainable development, gender, caste vis-a-vis waste management.

"This is part of the daily struggle of these soldiers who are deserving of as much, if not more, credit than the soldier on the border since its their hardwork that keeps our cities clean and liveable," said Milind Ranade, general secretary of Kachra Vahtuk Shramik Sangh (Garbage Transporters' Union) who was present for the screening. "It is laudable that the students have taken the initiative to highlight the truth despite the din of the propagandist campaign by the government."

Made as a part of the 'Working With Video' course, which allows students to cut their teeth in documentary filmmaking, the films will be screened in stakeholder communities before they travel to festivals or get showcased on television. One of the final year students, Garima Kaul, who was part of the team that made LDWR told DNA how her group was clear about focussing on the invisibilisation of people who work with waste and their problems.

"We found that most conservancy workers are not even given masks, gloves or shoes that are mandatory. The government thinks nothing of spending crores on shams like the Swachch Bharat campaigns with high profile celebs like Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini," she said pointing out how the visuals of the latter sweeping an already squeaky clean road near her home with a broom, which does not even touch the ground provided comic relief in what was otherwise a sombre subject.

Another film Wo Dhuan tells the tale of Sathenagar that houses Mumbai's only biomedical waste factory. Through residents' voices, the film explores living conditions around the area, along with the effect of the factory upon the community. "The narrative journeys into the concept of waste and waste disposal and how these neat categories often lose sharp boundaries and become blurred when personal experiences are foregrounded," the student filmmaker Tanya Mishra who was part of the team that made this film said. "We wanted to symbolically allude to how the system reduces human life to waste. We feel very angry with the silence in mainstream media about these issues and that anger comes through. We wanted it to."

Professors at the SMCS, TISS and series commissioning editors Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayashankar beamed about the work of their protégés as "cutting edge and important for the very relevant questions they seek to raise". They should know. This author/academic/teacher couple are also internationally acclaimed and celebrated docu-filmmakers whose works have screened at the some of the biggest festivals around the world bringing them a whopping 32 national and international awards. "From 2012, students have,on their own, tried to look at polarisation because of the 1992 riots, conservancy workers and caste," says Monteiro. "We then work with them to refine and focus their ideas."

The recurrent fires at the Deonar dumping ground in April this year and the way the city reacted to it sparked the idea of working on the theme of waste. "The middle class seems completely divorced from dumping grounds and garbage. Once they throw something away, they don't seem to be concerned with what happens with it," points out Jayashankar and adds, "The communities living around the dumping ground were blamed for starting fires without going into why they'd destroy thier source of livelihood."

But isn't that worrisome given the current dispensation's lack of tolerance for any questioning or insistence on accountability? "Shouldn't universities be at the forefront of resistance and ask questions?" asks Monteiro in reply. "As long as there's no agenda-driven, malafide opposition for the sake of opposition, I don't see why these exercises shouldn't be encouraged."

We couldn't agree more.