The Unbearable Being of Lightness

The Unbearable Being of Lightness is a 45 minutes documentary film made in 2016 directed by Ramchandra PN. The documentary documents a workshop that the filmmaker had conducted for a group of students at the University of Hyderabad, immediately after the student protests on the issue of the suicide of Rohith Vemula had ended at the University.^[1]

'Ramchandra didn’t use the footage shot by the students during the workshop. He also did not dip into the amateur footage shot by the protestors. “I didn’t want a workshop film, nor did I want a protest film, because I wanted a reflective tone that would have the points of view of the students and beyond,” he said.'

(Source: Nandini Ramnath)^[2]

The film was premiered on the 12th of November, 2016 at the Kolkata International Film Festival. ^[3]

Plot

The film maker sets off to Hyderabad after student boycott of classes has ended at the University of Hyderabad. As a part of a documentary film making workshop, the participants have to visit, observe, write and film at a crowded place within the campus called Shopcom, where students hang around after classes. It is also the epicenter of the protests on the Rohith Vemula issue. As the participants read out what they have observed, they can't but bring out the issue of their deceased colleague and the sadness and bitterness associated with it. A group of singers at Shopcom sing a protest song that was written in a different context by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, an actor in Mangalore, Saumesh Bangera, reads out the last letter of Rohith Vemula, his suicide note.^[4] and on blank screen, portions of the article written by journalist Sudipto Mondal named 'Rohith Vemula, an unfinished portrait' are read out.

'Did a lifetime of unequal treatment add to the conditions at the university in leading Rohith to take his own life? "His family story haunted Rohith all his life," Riyaz says. "He faced caste discrimination in the house where he grew up. But instead of succumbing, Rohith fought it out. He broke many barriers before he got to the final stretch, his PhD. He gave up when he realised he could go no further."'

(Source: Sudipto Mondal).^[5]

The film looks at the three generations of the Vemula family and deals with how over the centuries we have been looking at the issue of Dalits.

Centuries of Discrimination

When Rohith Vemula hanged himself in a hostel room on 17 January 2016, the immediate cause and the events leading up to the death came into sharp focus and got national wide attention.^[6] While there are various inquiries and investigations going on to find out the immediate causes of his death, Rohith's suicide has sharply brought into focus the ills of the caste system and the issue of what B. R. Ambedkar called, 'graded inequality' immersed in it.^[7] The film The Unbearable Being of Lightness seeks to supplement this aspect.

References