Act I : Swearing-In Whispers
A screenplay based on the Radia Phone tap(e)s.
The Radia Tape leaks have been described as “essential listening for anyone trying to be a journalist.” This invitation could be extended to anyone interested in contemporary rhetoric, and the links between speech, communication and politics.
Act I (Swearing-in Whispers) is a screenplay in Courier 12pt melodramatic format, spanning four days in the wake of the general elections of 2009.
Act II (Hum Logos) is a 45-minute audio film following from where the screenplay ends, taking us across the next two months.
https://pad.ma/BZX/infoWith the new cabinet in power, a lobbyist goes about her business - from cellphones to cooking gas to news media. Later, several top journalists would claim that they were just "stringing her along", and their conversations were not based on and had no impact on reality. A broad spectrum of rhetorical agents: lies, cries, pen drives, family feuds and bad networks can thus be heard pulsing through the nervous systems of Indian democracy. The original recordings were made by the government. The screenplay slows them down and asks: what kinds of environments and scenes may lie behind them? The film asks: if debate around these tapes is about whether they are edited or not, or as Justice Mukhopadhay put it if "splice has been added", then what could further editing do?
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