Change of direction

Migrant labourers cycle back from Delhi to their home in Patna. The documentary looks at how jobs can be restored for such people. Pic/PTI

When Robert Burns wrote in a poem in 1785 that the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, little did he realise the sort of resonance that the line would find in today's pandemic-ridden 21st century scenario. Everyone across industries has gone back to the drawing board. Their main concern is getting back on their feet once the lockdown is lifted. But the sort of uncertainty we are faced with has given birth to questions like, how do we restructure our businesses to adapt to the changing times? What sort of measures do we take to insulate ourselves from maximum damage? And how do we prioritise safety going ahead? These are some of the issues that a new documentary series called The Great Shift deals with, in an effort to provide solutions to the global problems that we are faced with today.

Filmmaker Rahsaan Noor has conceived it, after his own plans, went for a toss once the harsh reality of the pandemic became evident. He had shifted base to Mumbai from the US last year, looking to make a foray into Hindi films. It was meant to be a co-production with a Chinese firm and things were ambling along smoothly. Noor started building relationships in the right circles in the Mumbai film industry. He worked on a script and put a team in place. The situation reached a point where they decided to start shooting for the movie in May this year. But then, the lockdown started. Production came to a screeching halt. The project hit a brick wall and the filmmaker realised that he had to come up with plan B.

Rahsaan Noor in a still from the film

His plan B is The Great Shift. Noor tells us that even he was in denial till the beginning of March because, like everyone else, he hadn't experienced anything like this before and thus didn't know what to expect. "I am a huge basketball fan and [the pandemic] didn't hit me till the NBA decided to postpone its entire season. Sitting in India, I thought at first that the lockdown would last a month. But that turned into two, and it now looks like we might even lose the rest of the year," he says, adding that this eventuality led him to start conversations with Aditya Goel, one of the executive producers of the shelved film, about how the world as we know it is going to change. Noor tells us, "We were brainstorming about how we could alter the [Hindi] movie's script when it hit him that we need to start a dialogue around the change that's imminent, so that we can create new processes to deal with it. There's a great shift coming, he said, and that's how we also hit upon the title of the documentary series."

The pilot has already been launched, and it takes a 360-degree look at how different entrepreneurs are grappling with loss of work. The episode illustrates the example of how Japan moved from entrenched oligarchy to supporting MSMEs immediately after WWII, to become an economic superpower in the modern day. And Noor, who plays the role of the narrator, also asks the viewer, "Can this [pandemic] be viewed as an opportunity? Is this a chance to restructure systems for sustainability? And is the idea of social entrepreneurship and innovation the new way forward?"

These answers will, of course, become clearer with time but meanwhile, the filmmaker hopes that the series acts like a table that has people seated around it, and from which ideas are sparked to give entrepreneurs the confidence to break their existing fears and take action. He says that creating the series has been akin to sitting in a college cafeteria where you are bombarded with ideas that creative people have been churning in their head. They are racking their brains for logistical solutions, laying out plans to tackle a post-lockdown reality, though the question remains: will these also go astray? Well, let's hope not, for everyone's sake.

Log on to The Great Shift on YouTube

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