The Hindu Business Line : Ancient footage

His wife, Mohana Krishnaswamy, says it was the news of his project proposal being approved by Prasar Bharti in 2005 that “enabled the faster recovery of Dr Krishnaswamy after a coronary bypass surgery.” Winner of four National awards for short films and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Documentary Films from the US International Film and Video Festival, Krishnaswamy considers Indian Imprints, his most recent documentary work, “as the most ambitious, satisfying and monumental work” of his career.

“I have a weakness for anything historic,” says the writer-director whose documentary TV serial runs into 18 episodes of 25 minutes each. Indian Imprints explores the influence of ancient India on South East Asia as reflected in its monuments and temples, dance forms and literature. The documentary traverses across Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Research

Thanks to intensive research done over several years, Krishnaswamy’s work is an interesting amalgam of facts and myths. More than 100 ancient monuments and temples have been showcased and the easy, yet gripping, narrative style incorporates both poetic questions and answers and plain storytelling.

The documentary opens with a surreal landscape of the volcanic plateau in Java, Indonesia. Followers of Hinduism have for centuries believed that Brahma created the whole world from this very place.

The film explains how long before the Christian era, Indian merchants, warriors, philosophers and religious preachers had voyaged to far-off lands across the oceans. They carried with them a wealth of literature, mythology and philosophy. The seamen settled down with the locals and established the Kingdom of Champa in Cambodia, which has nearly 100 Hindu temples.

Featuring interviews with statesmen, artistes and scholars in these countries, the documentary is an eye-opener on India’s heritage and values. It also captures the philosophical nuances that are deeply entrenched in the cultures of these four countries and the rituals that are practised even today. For instance, the film is punctuated at several places with scenes from a Ramayana ballet performed by 100 Muslim artistes in Laos; it features the King of Thailand reciting the Tamil bhakti hymns of Thiruppavai. The King states that his ancestors migrated from the holy city of Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu many years ago.

Another interesting feature of the documentary is that it is replete with ‘Did you know’ facts on the indelible influence of ancient India. Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, a Vishnu temple, is the largest stone temple on earth; and the longest Sanskrit inscription is found on the northern gate of the Great Wall of China. The episodes also include a commentary on the American bombing of the World Heritage Site of Vietnam which destroyed 50 of the 70 Hindu temples that had stood there for more than 1,000 years.

The making

The film is a “combination of scholarship with visual melody”, says Krishnaswamy. On the making of the film, he says, “When we started researching the locations, it began to slowly sink in that this was an exercise in international diplomacy as in historical research and documentary production. We were dealing with two monarchies (Cambodia and Thailand), two communist regimes (Laos and Vietnam) and a democracy (Indonesia). Handling sensitivities, different perceptions and varied attitudes presented a tough sudoku.” Apart from being caught in the 2006 earthquake at Jakarta, which “made us feel like nomads in a strange land”, shooting in Cambodia was also a challenge. “Any attempt to make a documentary of this scale would have been incomplete without Cambodia, which was just recovering from a tragic political turmoil,” he says.

He had chalked out a Rs 1.8-crore budget for the documentary but Prasar Bharti granted only Rs 90 lakh and “we managed to scrape through”, he says. With impressive cinematography by Madhu Ambat and background music score by Rajhesh Vaidhya, the film is a visual treat for historians, philosophers and students alike. Catch Indian Imprints on DD-India, Sunday 1.30 p.m.

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