Documentary Screening

BFS is very happy to invite you to the Bangalore premiere of the documentary film So Heddan So Hoddan (Like Here Like There) by internationally acclaimed documentary film makers Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayasankar,

on Sunday, 18^th September at 6.30 pm

Venue: Smriti Nandan, Nandadeep, 15/3, Palace Road, Opp. National gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore 560 052. Telephone: 22258091/65979732

The film directors will be present at the screening to introduce the film and to interact with the audience after the screening of the film. All are welcome

Synopsis:(Language: Sindhi/Hindi/Kutchi with English Subtitles, Dur: 52 mins)

Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, a medieval Sufi poet, is an iconic figure in
the cultural history of Sindh. Bhitai’s Shah Ji Risalo is a remarkable
collection of poems which are sung by many communities in Kachchh and
across the border in Sindh (now in Pakistan). Many of the poem...s
draw on the eternal love stories of Umar-Marui and Sasui-Punhu, among
others. These songs speak of the pain of parting, of the inevitability
of loss and of deep grief that takes one to unknown and mysterious
terrains.

Umar Haji Suleiman of Abdasa, in Kachchh, Gujarat, is a self taught
Sufi scholar; once a cattle herder, now a farmer, he lives his life
through the poetry of Bhitai. Umar’s cousin, Mustafa Jatt sings the
Bheths of Bhitai. He is accompanied on the Surando, by his cousin
Usman Jatt. Usman is a truck driver, who owns and plays one of the
last surviving Surandos in the region. The Surando is a peacock
shaped, five-stringed instrument from Sindh. The film explores the
life worlds of the three cousins, their families and the Fakirani Jat
community to which they belong.

Before the Partition the Maldhari (pastoralist) Jatts moved freely
across the Rann, between Sindh (now in Pakistan) and Kutch. As
pastoral ways of living have given way to settlement, borders and
industrialisation, the older generation struggles to keep alive the
rich syncretic legacy of Shah Bhitai, that celebrates diversity and
non-difference, suffering and transcendence, transience and survival.
These marginal visions of negotiating difference in creative ways
resist cultural politics based on tight notions of nation-state and
national culture; they open up the windows of our national imaginary.