Walking with Warkaris

Shah didn’t stick to the pilgrims’ traditional route. “Those who come from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka to join the Warkaris from Maharashtra at various points, the way tributaries flow into a river,” says Shah whose interest in Maharashtra’s landscape is at the root of this project. “The wish is to find ways of mapping the crisscrossing journeys in and around the main trajectory of the Warkaris,” she says.

A visual artist and poet, Shah doesn’t know yet how her work-in-progress project is eventually going to shape up. While the experimental filmmaker wants her IFA-funded project to be as close to her own experience, she will also ensure that viewers undertake a journey of their own while viewing the film. This will be made possible through the project’s web platform. The film will be interspersed with music — songs of Tukaram and Dnyaneshwar — images and texts, including writings of her own, as well as other Marathi critics and poets such as Irawati Karve and Arun Kolatkar, all hyperlinked. What the viewer clicks will determine the audio-visual journey he undertakes. “Each viewer’s journey will be close to but also differ from my own. I am not giving them templates,” says the director, calling the project “a crossroad of cinema, poetry and anthropology”.
sankhayan.ghosh@expressindia.com