19 February,2023 12:34 PM IST | Mumbai | Yusra Husain
Twenty women attached with the NGO Kranti walked the 800 km-long Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage in Spain in 2019, to end it on a cathartic note of self-revelation and learning
This too shall pass," smiles Sheetal Jain with rapid gesticulations. "This has become my motto since the pilgrimage to Spain. It did begin on a tumultuous and painful note, but ended in mountains of personal discoveries." Her excitement is palpable through the laptop screen on a weekday afternoon.
Daughter of a sex worker, Jain is a professional drummer and social activist. Born and raised in the red-light district of Kamathipura for the first 12 years of her life, Jain's mother was a bar dancer and her maternal grandmother was trafficked from Karnataka to be sold to the brothel there. Abused by her step-father whose surname she wants to get rid of, Jain was thrown out of the house by her druggie mother when she was not even a teen. She found her purpose after coming in contact with various NGOs while growing up.
The pilgrimage the 28-year-old is referring to is the 800 km walk down the Camino de Santiago in the far west end of Spain. She embarked on this with 19 other women, all daughters of sex workers, under the aegis of the NGO, Kranti. This arduous journey of self-introspection lasted 35 days through June and July 2019, and has been immortalised not only in the minds of these "Krantikaris", but in Our Odyssey is Red. The 40-minute documentary, made by Agra-based feminist arts collective Hers is Ours, won the bronze in Awareness and Media (non-profit) at the international Anthem Awards which honour mission-driven work.
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, a small village in the south of France, was the starting point of the pilgrimage that ended in Santiago de Compostela at the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great.
"At Kranti school, we read Paulo Coelho's The Pilgrimage, which is about his personal experience of the journey," says Jain. "The founders decided that we should all go too. In the beginning, I questioned its maqsad." After three days of continuous crying, homesickness bodily aches and pains, the pilgrimage seeped into Jain. "When we reached a small village, after miles and miles of walking, I connected the dots," says the Nallasopara resident, "I realised this mirrored the trials and tribulations of life. There is a power in the universe, God or whoever, who will help pass difficult days and times. I've had a better outlook towards life since."
While the walk was cathartic for the pilgrims, whose average age was about 22 years, it was also so for those behind the camera and at the edit table.
We caught up with co-directors of the film, Ayushi Shriramwar, Naomi Jahan, and Tahir Ahmed Qureshi. "We are generally pictured as becharis and viewed from an âother' lens," explains Jain, "but this film takes our voice and doesn't add any mirch-masala. Videos have been made on us but not through us."
Qureshi's words solidify the claim. "We felt there was a void in the representation of women who take charge of their lives and we wanted to fill that vacuum. We wanted to change the narrative of these women being passive victims to active changemakers, because that's what they are. They have taken control of their lives, their education, their development and that of other women and people of marginalised groups around them. It is inki kahan, inhi ki zubaani."
"I had a personal and professional need to talk about violence against women," says Goa-based Jahan, who is originally from France, "the root cause, various perspectives, sexuality and how sex work is a taboo profession."
It was an absolute co-incidence that Jahan bumped into the co-founder of Kranti, Robin Chaurasiya, and it was decided to capture Kranti's work in its Mumbai home. "The women were in Europe for a performance tour of their Lal Batti Express theatre group and were to embark upon the pilgrimage," adds Goa-based Shriramwar. "It was the best way to draw a cinematic parallel to their lives." Tickets were bought, a camera was rented; Jahan and Shriramwar took quick lessons from Qureshi on camera work and joined the women.
Money was scarce, and crowd funding poured in R16 lakh. Amid blisters on feet, backaches caused by heavy backpacks, emotional turmoil, fending for lodging, busking on European soil and quick fixes for food, the pilgrims and crew learnt to survive. "If we thought walking uphill is a task, downhill was even more difficult with all those bags," says Jahan and Shriramwar. "But we all learnt patience, resilience and survival skills."
Back in Agra, Qureshi had to edit 35 days of footage - though shot in 2019, the film was completed only in December 2022. "COVID-19 added to the delay, but the trust between the crew and the Krantikaris helped," he says. "This award is validation that there is coherence in issues we are touching and the way we are working. That we should continue on this path for ourselves and fellow changemakers."
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