Motornama: Tours - 10
Director: Shaina Anand, Ashok Sukumaran
Duration: 00:59:39; Aspect Ratio: 1.778:1; Hue: 16.757; Saturation: 0.113; Lightness: 0.228; Volume: 0.358; Cuts per Minute: 5.951; Words per Minute: 21.774
Summary: A ride through the industrial district around Roshanara Road, New Delhi. We come across various sites and histories of the "industrial age" in the city, and its related narratives of automation, pollution, labour and closure. The tour is on cycle rickshaws, with rickshaw
wallahs as narrators and guides.
Sites visited include houses in the shadow of the new metro, a hundred year-old ice factory, a car-cover karkhana, a derelict cinema, motor repair and re-boring shops, a printing press transported from Lahore, a famous clock tower, amongst others.
Roshanara Motornama tour guides:
Rajesh, Raju, Lalji, Ajay kumar, Dinesh, Saddam, Ranjit, Rakesh, Tirloki, Durga Prasad, Nankhe, Panna Lal, Ramesh, Ram Bahadur. Vijay Kumar Misra. Akhilesh, Ram Surat, Ram Sajiwan, Ram Sajan, Raj Kumar, Suresh Kumar, Anil Kumar, Dharam Raj, Nihroo.
Roshanara Motornama was part of '48 degrees C' held in New Delhi, December 12-21, 2008. Curated by Pooja Sood. Organised by the Goethe Institut, Delhi.
A project by Shaina Anand (
http://www.chitrakarkhana.net/) and Ashok Sukumaran (
http://0ut.in).
See also
Motornama Roshanara
New Delhi
Offscreen: Do you want a biscuit?
Ashok: Some people had lunch...
Offscreen: Hello.. I felt very happy.. I will see you tomorrow..
Ashok: How are you!
Offscreen: You showed wonderful things..
Ashok: What time are we meeting?
Offscreen: Come before lunch so that we can talk..
Green: So today is the last day..
Ashok: Yeah, I know.'
Ashok: This is right here.. did you show them?
Green: Yes, we saw the facade..
Ashok: This is a whole room like this.. with the shaking cupboards..this is really crazy..
Green: Did you and Shaina film this?
Ashok: Those waves are in the image..
Green: That's not real.. that's been done on the editing..
Ashok: What?
Green: The big shake..
Ashok: No, they area actually shaking ! They are sorting machines..
Cap: There is mutton, chicken curry, butter chicken, dal makhani, shahi paneer.. chana masala, rajma..
Ashok: No the food is great... seriously.. we had a big party once, three days ago..
Green: I asked him and he said its over.. we could have eaten..
Ashok: Dinesh! Why didn't you say anything in the market? You don't say anything in the grains market?
Dinesh: I did but he said that he was getting late and that he will see it later. I told that here is the wooden box... these are the shops.. I stay here in the evenings... I sleep and eat here... so he said okay.. now show me the ice factory... I said okay I will show you that..
Ashok: If its shut then wait and show him around.
Dinesh: He said its getting late, show me the ice factory. Leave the market.
Ashok: Okay.
Dinesh: I said look around a little and the I will show the ice factory.
Ashok: Did you tell that we stay here and all that?
Dinesh: Yes I told all that
Ashok: Now go on our route
Ashok: Just any thoughts or any..
Specs: No I felt that the whole project was very well researched and what hit me maximum was that in this one road there are like amazing amount of livelihoods.. you have researched so well and there are so many outer factors that are affecting these livelihoods now and you know... which is decreasing their income and I really loved the way the project ran and the explanations from the rockshawallhs themselves.. showing us the lanes and then explaining the things to us.. spending time with each of those people like the pulp factory where we sat down and had a conversation...
Specs: I think that this whole journey has shown me a part of Delhi that I never knew existed.. I think its really a brilliant project.
Ashok: Was there some of.. do you feel the neighbourhood is sad or how are people you spoke to? How are they dealing with their lives at the moment?
Specs: I didn't feel any kid of sadness you know.. I mean the people who we talk to specially this chai wallah out here - he is really happy.
Ashok: On air or off air..
Ashok: Sorry, you were saying something..
Green cloak: The rickshaw wallah was expressing regrets about the cinema hall.. its prayas right?
Ashok: Palace..
Green cloak: He was expressing regrets about that being shut down.. and I think he lived with that for many years.. he was telling me about how he grew up watching cinema since he was that small.. so obviously there is much regret out there.. then he also mentioned about how labour in that engineering works... so there is regret again.. how labour
Green cloak: There were a lot of these good labour available out there and they stopped getting work because of all these garages coming up in the outskirts of Delhi - where we would take our car.. we would never get our cars our here and truckers do not get their trucks out here anymore..
Ashok: You have to give me one second I am sorry..
Green Cloak: Like you have all those big garages.. so how those big garages hasve come into being and they have these assembly line productions.. so the labour out there, it stopped working.. I mean they don't get any work... regret of the slums being demolished... so I can see a lot of regret in this journey..
Green Cloak: In his narrative he might be expressing in a certain way but I feel there is a certain amount og regret... As far as the project is concerned I think its been executed very well because.. I as a photographer, I do walk down these streets but I.. normally do a lot of photography and documentary photography but I have not done any serious work in older parts of Delhi... i have not looked at livelihoods as a thing in this part of Delhi... and how it has been affected..
Green Cloak: So that's very interesting .. how it has been executed and how rickshaw wallahs are actually taking us to these places and opening up our mind.. and also opening up their minds because I am a little unsure about what he meant by speaking about that cotton shread.. machine.. I didn't understand how he was trying to connect BT Cotton because he was saying that this is BT Cotton and at the same time he said that there are these hybrid cotton varieties that are coming up.. taking over and all that.. but BT Cotton is very bad.. so I think that thought process is confusing..
Green Cloak: The idea is that they are.. the project has actually opened up their thought process.. the fact that its just opened one person's.. I mean maybe it might juts open up other people also through them you know.. thats a nice bit about the execution of this project..
Ashok: I just took a pan and I'm still getting a sound..
Ashok: Make them listen to song 8 or 6..
Ashok: Listen to song 4 for sure.. our rickshaw wallah named Lalji has said something in it.. and then there is a wonderful song of Kabir in it.. make them listen to it on GT Road..
Guide: I stood the rickshaw on the road and someone flicked it..
Ashok: What?
Guide: These headphones..
Guide: After independence, in Asia this had got the first license..
Guide: (inaudible)
Brown: Which?
Guide: Gonda..
Brown: All of you are from Gonda?
Guide: 99%
Brown: I spoke to Suresh also..
Guide: Not only the rickshaw wallahs.. but the entire population... but the locals..
Brown: Guide..
Guide: When we migrated here.. this was the nearest place.. the area is also good.. its easy to earn a living.. 20,000 people live here without any rooms...
Brown: Yes I saw you all live on pavements..
Guide: I did not take you to Indira market or else there you would have seen that boxes have been kept.. in front of all shops.. that's where they live..
Guide: We can't eat in hotels.. we have a stove in a shop.. I have a friend who has a hotel.. I eat out there..
Dark: Which was on from the ancient times.. its still going on now..
Guide 2: Now we will go to the printing press..its since 1980..
Shaina: 18th century!
Guide: Sorry.. 1880..
Guide 2: Its come from Lahore..
Shaina: Akhilesh .. since this is our last round, I need to document.. so we don't mind.. tell them about the clock tower again..
Akhilesh: There was Birla Mill before.. when people worked here, there was no clock..this was put up for people to look at the time when they work. But the factory for which it was made, it has shut down.
Dark: It was shifts.. because of pollution the factories here have shut down, okay.
Shaina: When people used to leave after their shifts, when there used to be lunch breaks, that time the bell used to ring.
Checks: When Jaipuri mills was there, the clock tower was there. Both the factories have shut down.
Shaina: In '96 or 2000?
Checks: In 1993 - Birla Mills.
Akhilesh: This has come up in 1935.. this printing press.. lets go in and have a look..
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