In a plaintive tone, an elderly man sings an ancient song of a land and her people. His voice rises and falls as it narrates the story of a community that was uprooted from the forest and freedom and forced to work for centuries on the plantations and fields of settlers who came from the plains. Fanning a winnowing pan (muram) tied with bells, he sits under a makeshift pandal, singing the tale of exploitation of his people, the Paniyar, an aboriginal community in and around Wayanad district. His voice breaks and almost becomes a sob as he sings of how Ithimala Gowda, a landlord, trapped the Paniyars frolicking in the wild and made them his slaves. Aneez K.Mappila, a journalist, had to wait for nearly three years before he could document the Penappattu and Ulppathi (the origin) sung by the Moopan (chieftain) of the Paniyars when there was a death in the community. “The Paniyars, like most Adivasis in India, are reluctant to talk about their lives to strangers and they are not too keen about showing their face for the camera either. Although I knew the Moopan well enough, he would consent to sing the Penappattu and explain it for me only after I had been with him for more than two years. Their language has no script and so it is difficult to understand the import of the song. The Moopan did me a favour by agreeing to help me record it and explaining the meaning too. It is for the first time that the Paniyars’ Penappattu and Ulppathi was being documented,” recounts Aneez, director of The Slave Genesis. Aneez K. Mappilla | Photo Credit: Special arrangement It is for this dedication that the 33-year-old filmmaker from Kalpetta in Wayanad won the 65th National Award for Best Anthropological/Ethnographic Film, produced with support from DOCEDGE-Bang, Kalpetta Film Fraternity and his banner Canopy Black. Since Aneez hails from the district, he was familiar with some of the issues confronting the Paniyars but still they took time to open up to a comparative stranger in their midst. In the meantime, Aneez, after completing his diploma in journalism from Calicut Press Club, had decided to make his living as a filmmaker by making documentaries on agriculture and related activities in Wayanad for various non-governmental organisations. In the course of is work, he gained a deeper understanding of the socio-economic problems plaguing the Paniyar community. He points out how all the plantations and fields in Wayanad are the result of the sweat and toil of the Paniyars although they own almost nothing and spend their lives in penury. A still from Slave Genesis | Photo Credit: Special arrangement “In primary school, about 40% of students in my class used to be Paniyars but many started dropping out by the time they reached class three or four. Few of them completed primary school and fewer still reached high school. Malayalam is not their language and the Malayalam medium schools are not able to keep them in schools even today. In the case of my classmates, after many years, I would come across them picking coffee or betel nuts. I knew their lives had to be documented but did not know where to start or how to go about it,” recounts the youngster. Finally, the self-taught filmmaker began shooting his documentary as a “one-man crew” on the Paniyars although he was “besieged by doubts about how he would go about it, what should be the focus of the film and whether he would be able to do justice to the many complex issues worrying the community”. In fact, for about six months he stopped the project as he became engrossed in another project for the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation. In the course of his work, he learnt about the Penappattu, a song sung as part of the funeral rites of the Paniyars. “I knew then that this was what had to be preserved for posterity. It is a private ritual that narrates the origins of the Paniyars, how they became enslaved and then goes on to detail the life of the deceased man. The singer, called Attholi, performs the song from 5 am to 5 pm. During the performance, he does not take any food and does not leave the place. More than a work of art, at that point, I saw it as a work to document a lifestyle that was rapidly being erased as the Paniyars confronted sweeping changes in their environment,” explains Aneez. The results of his patience and perseverance are evident in the film as they permit Aneez to shoot their rituals and talk to him about their animistic beliefs and customs. Eloquent frames capture the distinctive jewellery, garments, homes and lives of the Paniyars without being intrusive. In many scenes, they seem to have accepted the camera’s presence. Did he show them the film? “Yes, I did screen the film at a couple of places where they were able to gather. I believe they liked the film because they liked the respectful attitude I had towards the Penappattu and their rituals. The Penappattu is revered because it sings of the soul of the dead man and of their ancestors. Their culture is extremely respectful of the ritual and the song and they liked the fact that I had not trivialised it,” says Aneez. However, more than screening the film for the Paniyars, he wants mainstream society to see the film to understand the plight of the Paniyars and their woes as they are swept along a current of modernity. As the inevitable question of what next comes up, Aneez says that once he completes a film he has been entrusted with, he will begin work on his independent project. The documentary will be screened at Nila theatre at 11.45 am today as part of the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK).

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