Kavita Bahl

‘I cannot give you my Forest’ is a modern day rendition of the David and Goliath story, played out in an Orwellian setting. The film is an intimate poetic window into the lives of the Kondh adivasis in Odisha- who eschew the duality of Man and Nature. The Kondh have internalised the Forest – pacing the rhythms of their lives with the cycle of the seasons. The Forest is a metaphor for their identity and their sovereignty. Against the foil of the bloodshed in what the Indian government calls the ‘Red Corridor’, their philosophy gives a counterpoint to the dominant discourse.

Women of rural Punjab have long forgotten to sing the songs of harvest in the midst of escalating farm suicides. The Film witnesses the march of widows of the 'Green Revolution' in Punjab as they re-negotiate the rules of engagement and the politics of domination, in their bid to survive. For the first time, Candles in the Wind tells the story from inside this area, known as the green reserve of India, a place which is relentlessly transforming itself into a social desert, where women are obliged to take over dramatic situations without any form of protection or assistance. Their struggle gives us a window into the social-economic flux in rural India - a nuanced understanding of the silent under-currents of a gender-specific struggle in the larger narrative of surviving as a farmer in these times.

Women of rural Punjab have long forgotten to sing the songs of harvest in the midst of escalating farm suicides. The Film witnesses the march of widows of the 'Green Revolution' in Punjab as they re-negotiate the rules of engagement and the politics of domination, in their bid to survive. For the first time, Candles in the Wind tells the story from inside this area, known as the green reserve of India, a place which is relentlessly transforming itself into a social desert, where women are obliged to take over dramatic situations without any form of protection or assistance. Their struggle gives us a window into the social-economic flux in rural India - a nuanced understanding of the silent under-currents of a gender-specific struggle in the larger narrative of surviving as a farmer in these times.

Women of rural Punjab have long forgotten to sing the songs of harvest in the midst of escalating farm suicides. The Film witnesses the march of widows of the 'Green Revolution' in Punjab as they re-negotiate the rules of engagement and the politics of domination, in their bid to survive. For the first time, Candles in the Wind tells the story from inside this area, known as the green reserve of India, a place which is relentlessly transforming itself into a social desert, where women are obliged to take over dramatic situations without any form of protection or assistance. Their struggle gives us a window into the social-economic flux in rural India - a nuanced understanding of the silent under-currents of a gender-specific struggle in the larger narrative of surviving as a farmer in these times.