Explore the full ebook collection and download it now at textbookfull.

com

Documentary Film in India An Anthropological

History 1st Edition Giulia Battaglia

https://textbookfull.com/product/documentary-film-in-india-
an-anthropological-history-1st-edition-giulia-battaglia/

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Browse and Get More Ebook Downloads Instantly at https://textbookfull.com

Click here to visit textbookfull.com and download textbook now
 Your digital treasures (PDF, ePub, MOBI) await
Download instantly and pick your perfect format...

Read anywhere, anytime, on any device!

A new history of documentary film Second Edition Mclane

https://textbookfull.com/product/a-new-history-of-documentary-film-
second-edition-mclane/

textbookfull.com

The Documentary Film Reader: History, Theory, Criticism

1st Edition Jonathan Kahana

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-documentary-film-reader-history-
theory-criticism-1st-edition-jonathan-kahana/

textbookfull.com

A New History of Documentary Film Second Edition Betsy A.

Mclane

https://textbookfull.com/product/a-new-history-of-documentary-film-
second-edition-betsy-a-mclane/

textbookfull.com

Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film Catalin Brylla

https://textbookfull.com/product/cognitive-theory-and-documentary-
film-catalin-brylla/

textbookfull.com
Film history an introduction Fourth Edition David Bordwell

https://textbookfull.com/product/film-history-an-introduction-fourth-
edition-david-bordwell/

textbookfull.com

A History of Anthropological Theory Paul A. Erickson

https://textbookfull.com/product/a-history-of-anthropological-theory-
paul-a-erickson/

textbookfull.com

Documentary Media History Theory Practice 2nd Edition

Broderick Fox

https://textbookfull.com/product/documentary-media-history-theory-
practice-2nd-edition-broderick-fox/

textbookfull.com

History of India 1st Edition Captivating History

https://textbookfull.com/product/history-of-india-1st-edition-
captivating-history/

textbookfull.com

Engaging Anthropological Theory A Social And Political

History Mark Moberg

https://textbookfull.com/product/engaging-anthropological-theory-a-
social-and-political-history-mark-moberg/

textbookfull.com
Documentary Film in India

This book maps a hundred years of documentary film practices in India. It demon-
strates that in order to study the development of a film practice, it is necessary to
go beyond the classic analysis of films and filmmakers and focus on the discourses
created around and about the practice in question. The book navigates different
historical moments of the growth of documentary filmmaking in India from the
colonial period to the present day. In the process, it touches upon questions con-
cerning practices and discourses about colonial films, postcolonial institutions,
independent films, filmmakers and filmmaking, the influence of feminism and the
articulation of concepts of performance and performativity in various films prac-
tices. It also reflects on the centrality of technological change in different historical
moments and that of film festivals and film screenings across time and space.
Grounded in anthropological fieldwork and archival research and adopting
Foucault’s concept of ‘effective history’, this work searches for points of origin that
creates ruptures and deviations taking distance from conventional ways of writing
film histories. Rather than presenting a univocal set of arguments and conclusions
about changes or new developments of film techniques, the originality of the book
is in offering an open structure (or an open archive) to enable the reader to engage
with mechanisms of creation, engagement and participation in film and art prac-
tices at large. In adopting this form, the book conceptualises ‘Anthropology’ as also
an art practice, interested, through its theoretico-­methodological approach, in cre-
ating an open archive of engagement rather than a representation of a distant
‘other’. Similarly, documentary filmmaking in India is seen as primarily a process
of creation based on engagement and participation rather than a practice interested
in representing an objective reality.
Proposing an innovative way of perceiving the growth of the documentary film
genre in the subcontinent, this book will be of interest to film historians and spe-
cialists in Indian cinema(s) as well as academics in the field of anthropology of art,
media and visual practices and Asian media studies.

Giulia Battaglia is a researcher in anthropology of visual/art/media practices

specialised in documentary film in India. Her work is interdisciplinary and draws
from a range of academic fields, including visual/media anthropology, documentary
studies, visual and material cultures, art and anthropology, Indian cinema, cultural
studies and film history. After receiving a PhD from the School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS), University of London, she has worked as a lecturer and
researcher in various departments of anthropology, media, arts and social science
as well as in cultural institutions in England and in France. At present, she lives and
works in Paris in the field of anthropology, arts and media, being part of the labo-
ratoire de recherche IRMECCEN, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3) and the
laboratoire de recherche LAIOS/IIAC, at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences
Sociales (EHESS). For the latter, she is also responsible for a funded international
project between art and social science, called ‘L’invention des formes de représenta-
tion à l’ère de la mondialisation’.
Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series

108 Islamic NGOs in Bangladesh 115 Sri Lanka’s Global Factory

Development, Piety and Workers
Neoliberal Governmentality (Un)Disciplined Desires and
Mohammad Musfequs Salehin Sexual Struggles in a Post-­
Colonial Society
109 Ethics in Governance in India Sandya Hewamanne
Bidyut Chakrabarty
116 Migration of Labour in
110 Popular Hindi Cinema India
Aesthetic Formations of the The squatter settlements of
Seen and Unseen Delhi
Ronie Parciack Himmat Singh Ratnoo
111 Activist Documentary Film in
117 Gender, Nation and Popular
Pakistan
Film in India
The Emergence of a Cinema
Globalizing Muscular
of Accountability
Nationalism
Rahat Imran
Sikata Banerjee
112 Culture, Health and
Development in South Asia 118 Media as Politics in South
Arsenic Poisoning in Asia
Bangladesh Edited by Sahana Udupa and
M. Saiful Islam Stephen D. McDowell

113 India’s Approach to 119 Death and Dying in India

Development Cooperation Ageing and end-­of-life care of
Edited by Sachin Chaturvedi the elderly
and Anthea Mulakala Suhita Chopra Chatterjee and
Jaydeep Sengupta
114 Education and Society in
Bhutan 120 Documentary Film in India
Tradition and modernisation An Anthropological History
Chelsea M. Robles Giulia Battaglia
Documentary Film in India
An Anthropological History

Giulia Battaglia
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Giulia Battaglia
The right of Giulia Battaglia to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Battaglia, Giulia, author.
Title: Documentary film in India : an anthropological history / Giulia
Battaglia.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge
contemporary South Asia series | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017030540| ISBN 9781138551732 (hb : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9781315147727 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Documentary films–India–History and criticism.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.D6 B3835 2017 | DDC 070.1/8–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017030540

ISBN: 978-1-138-55173-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-14772-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
A mio padre
Contents

List of figures ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xiv
List of abbreviations and acronyms xvii

Introduction 1
Documentary studies, Indian cinema and film genre 3
Living, doing and thinking anthropology 7
Beyond anthropology: the book 27

1 History’s fragments 35
Discursification of colonial film productions and activities 38
‘Cultural performance’ and early cinema 43
Gandhi’s films 47
Flaherty in India 49
Educational films 52
Another history? 54

2 Around the Films Division 61

From national discourse to filmmakers’ agency 63
The ‘formidable gang of the documentary movement’ 68
Back to the present 75

3 The growth of independent practices 80

Independent filmmakers 83
Independent filmmaking: the New Wave 88
Independent film 95
Overlapping 102
viii   Contents
4 The advent of video technology 109
From early television experiments to the arrival of video
technology 110
Video technology and media practices 114
Celluloid vs. video 122
Conclusion 126

5 Articulation of performance and performativity 129

Theorising performance and performativity 131
Women’s groups and feminist discourse 134
Filmmakers and films 145
Crafting forms: a focus on cinematographers 149

6 Film festivals, small media and online networks 159

Film festivals as public fora 160
Public broadcasting in 1990s India 162
Small media networks: from independent newsletters to the
forum for independent films and video 164
Mobile and online networks 169

7 Sites of cultural activism 178

Independent film festivals: focus on Vibgyor 180
Public/private screenings: focus on Pedestrian Pictures 185

8 Open-­ended archives: film, art and anthropology 197

Installations and digital archive platforms 200
‘Installing’ past and present history 204

Conversations/interviews 212
Filmography 215
Bibliography 218
Index 241
Figures

1.1 Shooting: Dr P.V. Pathy working with Paul Zils in Indian

Documentary 39
1.2 Dr P.V. Pathy: book collection of Pathy’s writing 50
2.1 Monopoly: cartoon in Docu-­Scene India 68
3.1 Award: cartoon in Docu-­Scene India 86
3.2 Sukhdev: celebratory volume 104
5.1 TAKE ONE. Cover of the Third World Women’s Film
Festival booklet 138
5.2 Brainstorming: an example of collective work, in the
booklet WOMEN: TAKE ONE. Beginning of a Dialogue
in the Third World Women’s Film Festival 141
6.1 Proposal of A Vision for Television 168
6.2 Vikalp: images from the festival-­protest. Mumbai,
festival 2004 173
6.3 Vikalp: slogans from the festival-­protest. Mumbai,
festival 2004 174
7.1 Vibgyor 2009: stands of organic food, arts and crafts 181
7.2 Vibgyor 2009: open forum – the public 182
7.3 Vibgyor 2009: open forum – speakers 182
7.4 Vibgyor 2009: peace slogans spread out in the campus 183
7.5 Pedestrian Pictures: members of Pedestrian Pictures
talking with filmmaker Chandra Siddan during their
monthly screening activity 187
7.6 Pedestrian Pictures: member of Pedestrian Pictures
providing material for film screening during their monthly
screening activity 188
8.1 Cartographies sensibles: detail of Dessins Envahissants # 0 201
8.2 Les Fils du Destin. Contemporary art installation 202
Preface

(A soft but determined voice caught my attention)

– I know you!
– Hello! Yes, do you remember me?
– Of course, we met here in Delhi once; you were doing some very
important work on documentary in India, right?
– Yesss!
– … then, we all went to eat something together. Yes, I do remember
you! How are you?
(Interaction with Kesang Tseten, Visible Evidence 21,
New Delhi, December 2014)

In December 2014, the 21st Visible Evidence, the international and itiner-
ant documentary film conference, was held in India. I had taken part in a
number of Visible Evidence conferences, and in the past few years, had
noticed an increasing openness towards documentary films made in south
Asia. Hence, when I found out that Visible Evidence 21 (VE 21) was to be
held in New Delhi I was not particularly surprised. This time, the logistics
of attending were much easier for me. When the conference took place, I
was already in India, conducting a short period of archival research at the
Films Division in Mumbai. I did not need to travel for too long – just a
couple of hours’ flight – but I did have to bear a significant temperature
change – from 35 to 10°C!
VE 21 ran for four days at the India International Centre (IIC) and was
host to papers from scholars from all over the world and parallel or com-
plementary seminars and/or film events in affiliated universities, including
the School of Arts and Aesthetics of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)
and the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia Millia
Islamia. Although by that time I had delivered about 30 academic presen-
tations at both international conferences and local seminars, I admit here
that for the first time in my life, I was particularly anxious about present-
ing part of my research. For the first time, I had to speak about my main
research findings about ‘documentary film practices in India’ to an
 Preface   xi
audience composed of not only international scholars who specialised in
documentary films but also Indian specialists and filmmakers from South
Asia. This was the first time I would have to ‘face’ several of the interlocu-
tors with whom I had extensively interacted during my 2007–2009 field-
work, with many of whom I had not been able to keep in regular contact.
With many of the participants, the last time our paths had crossed I was
still a student and as yet unsure about how my doctoral thesis would
develop and what kind(s) of ‘reading(s)’ about documentary film practices
in India I would finally provide. This time, by contrast, I was an early-­
career scholar – with a PhD in hand and a few publications already circu-
lating across the academic world. In other words, there was no reason for
me to feel insecure about my academic interpretation(s). I had to stand by
my claims and be ready for criticism, knowing that what I studied was
not the common anthropological ‘other’. Rather, it was a practice articu-
lated by individuals with ‘high’ cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984) as other
academics; they were what Mahon (2000) would call ‘cultural producers’,
always ready to listen to me, read me and make claims and criticism
accordingly.
My level of tension immediately decreased as I stepped into the main
venue on the first cold morning of VE. Unsure about how long it would
take me to get to the IIC from the accommodation I had booked in Delhi, I
gave myself extra time and arrived a bit too early at the venue. I picked up
a warm black tea, went straight into the sun to warm myself up and started
looking around – as we, academics, often do during conference gatherings
to see whether there are any friends or colleagues there who we have not
seen for a long time. With my tea in hand, I realised that there were not
many people around yet, apart from the main local organisers. Among
them, there was Kaushik Bhaumik who, thanks to his academic special-
isation and interest in history and south Asian cinema, I had met and inter-
acted with on several occasions during my time in India. Kaushik was
talking with a small group of people I did not know and after we had
greeted each other and exchanged a couple of ‘contextual’ words regarding
the Indian weather and the Indian ‘boom’ economy, while I was already
moving away to go and greet someone else, he loudly commented to the
group of people, in an attempt to catch my attention again, ‘Do you know,
I have known Giulia from the time she was everywhere? At that time, there
was no event about documentary in India that one could have gone to
without finding her!’
This comment both froze and pleased me at the same time. As I was
already physically too distant from the group, and was a bit embarrassed
by such an unexpected comment, I simply made an ‘empty’ reply, saying
something like, ‘Of course, yeah …’ with a chuckle and a smile, while con-
tinuing to walk in the direction I had already taken. Yet, I was moved.
That sentence acted as a flashback to a time in India when, as Kaushik
said, I was precisely ‘everywhere’.
xii   Preface
This memory immediately made me feel comfortable in the still uneasy
conference context. Until that moment, I had always felt that I had to
work very hard to make claims about my status in the community of docu-
mentary filmmakers in India. In fact, who am I to talk about ‘them’? Is this
‘me’ and ‘them’ dichotomy a useful category for understanding how I
engaged with, got involved with, studied and interpreted a ‘community of
practice’ (Lave and Wenger 1991)? Knowing that there were some people
who recognised that during almost two years’ ceaseless engagement with
this community I had become a bit ‘ubiquitous’, gave me a sense of reas-
surance in reference to similar claims I made in my doctoral dissertation.
Moreover, realising that a statement like the one made by Kaushik could
have a strong sensorial imprint on my own sense of self helped me to
acknowledge that this ‘ubiquity’ had been made possible not just because I
was an active and determined researcher (as people like Kaushik might
think or hint at in contexts such as the one just described), but because the
community and all its related events became during that period of field-
work part of my own self, pushing me towards that sort of powerful
anthropological ‘between’ that is constitutive of those who not only prac-
tise but live anthropology (Stoller 2009). Indeed, for almost two years of
my life, there was nothing else for me but the documentary film community
in India – and, arguably, in a more diluted way, this feeling lingered until I
completed my PhD in England in 2012, and it continues to have a strong
impact on me now.
This sense of recognition and acknowledgement ‘from the community’
returned to me during several of my unexpected interactions at VE 21. I
was pleased (and sometimes surprised) to discover how many filmmakers
simply remembered me without hesitation and greeted me warmly when
we bumped into each other. This was the case with the aforementioned
interaction with Kesang Tseten; I hardly knew him but he apparently
remembered me well after one single interaction we had in New Delhi in
December 2008. This was also what occurred with Ali Kazimi. We had
had no further contact since meeting in Kerala in February 2009, but when
Ali saw me walking towards him at the conference he put the book he was
consulting back on the desk of Orient BlackSwan publishers, opened his
arms towards me, and said, ‘Giulia, here you are! I read you were here, I
am so pleased!’ and hugged me. We then continued to have nice conversa-
tions over the remainder of the four days. Needless to say, all these interac-
tions gratified me and immediately made me feel ‘at home’ and relaxed
about my original insecurities.
VE 21 became a quintessential moment for my research, in that it placed
together filmmakers, film critics, a few anthropologists, film historians and
documentary scholars, from India and abroad, with whom, as individuals,
I had previously shared part of my research. For the first time they had all
come together in a sort of ‘feast’, celebrating not only the academic field of
‘documentary studies’, but also ‘documentary films in South Asia’ as a
 Preface   xiii
significant phenomenon that merits serious academic attention (cf. Sarkar
and Wolf 2012). This gathering motivated me to return to this project,
which I started to develop as a book soon after gaining my PhD from the
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of
London, in December 2012. Specifically, VE 21 inspired me to revisit my
doctoral findings and analyses in relation to some recent changes in the
practice both of documentary films in India and of anthropology. This
book addresses precisely these variations while telling a story of the devel-
opment of documentary film practice in India, in the hope of dialoguing
with anthropologists as much as with those interested in documentary film
history, Indian cinema(s) and art/media practices.
Acknowledgements

This work was conceived in 2006, when I was still a Master’s student at
the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Over the
course of more than a decade, made up of: a 20 months of fieldwork in
India; a long period of writing a PhD; various teaching and postdoctoral
positions in various institutions and countries; and regular visits to India,
this work has inevitably taken multiple forms. Several people and institu-
tions have supported its constant transformation. So many have been of
inspiration, support and help, it would be too difficult to name them all. I
therefore ask in advance for forgiveness for all significant omissions.
To begin with, I would like to thank Stephen Putnam Hughes (who
supervised my doctoral studies) and Christopher Pinney and Ravi Vasude-
van (who examined my doctoral dissertation) for their precious critique
and advice, without which this work would have not moved much further
from its initial PhD form. The supporting and sometimes sharp comments
of anonymous peer reviewers have also enabled the intellectual develop-
ment of this work. For the period of my studies at SOAS, in London, I am
particularly thankful to David Mosse, Christopher Davis, Edward
Simpson, Dolores Martinez, Caroline Osella, Johan Pottier, Trevor
Marchand, Annabelle Sreberny and Kevin Latham; also Nicole Wolf, Peter
Loizos and my colleague and friend Paolo Favero. Among those who pro-
vided intellectual but also moral support and sometimes just a good vibe
and the right inspiration, I owe my most sincere gratitude to: Brendan
Donegan, Alice Tilche, Aude Michelet, Zoe Goodman, Roberta Zavoretti,
Gala Olavide Sicard, Niccolò Caderni, Manuel Capurso, Alessandra
Marotta, Diego Manduri, Maria Elettra Verrone, Maria Luisa Rubino,
Sebastiano Miele and my everlasting friend Antonella Puopolo.
During my primary long-­term fieldwork in India, I met for the first time
Thomas Waugh, to whom I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude for trust-
ing my research and sharing his invaluable 1980s archival material with
me. For opening their ‘personal archives’ and sharing priceless historical
material with me, I particularly thank Deepa Dhanraj, Sanjay Kak, Anjali
Montairo, K.P. Jayasankar, Amar Kanwar, Lawrence Liang, Ranjan De,
Fr. Benny, George Kutty, Saratchandran, Sabeena Gadhioke, Manjira
 Acknowledgements   xv
Datta and Pankaj Butalia. I also owe my gratitude to public, private and
independent institutions and collectives in India, which have welcomed my
research and provided intellectual and material support over the years. The
MIDS, the NFAI, the FD, the IDPA, Majlis, Magic Lantern Foundation,
the ALF, SARAI, the Anthropological Survey of India and above all, Pedes-
trian Pictures. It is impossible for me to name all the filmmakers I met
during my years of fieldwork, with whom I spent a very exciting and signi-
ficant time of my life and without whom this work would not have been
possible. While thanking all of them, I must nevertheless, single out those
who have engaged in much more critical discussions in this research, who
strongly supported me throughout, and who occasionally commented on
part of it – Deepa Dhanraj, Rahul Roy, Meghnath B., Sanjay Kak, Ranjan
Palit, Pradeep Deepu, Uvaraj M., Tarun Saldhana, Ali Kazimi, Sughata
Sunil, and Nilanjan Bhattacharya: thank you very much.
After being awarded a PhD, several people have continued believing in
this work and many others have helped me to sharpen my ideas and ana-
lyses. I am particularly thankful to Myria Georgiou, Shakuntala Banaji,
Ellen Helsper, Rosie Thomas, Anil Kumar, V.S. Kundu and also to Roger
Sansi, Fiona Siegenthaler, Marcus Banks, Caterina Pasqualino, Jean-­
Bernard Ouedraogo, Letizia Giannella, Tiziana Nicoletta Beltrame and
Guillermo Vargas-­Quisoboni. My sincere gratitude also goes to all the doc-
toral and postdoctoral fellows I met while working at the Musée du quai
Branly in Paris, as well as the more permanent staff of the museum. Specif-
ically, I would like to thank Anne-Christine Taylor, Denis Vidal, Frédéric
Keck, Jessica de Largy, Julien Clement, Christine Barthes, Baptiste Gilles,
Valeria Motta, Emilie Stoll and my intellectual and moral ‘partner in
crime’ Arnaud Dubois. Lastly, I also want to thank Nadim Nehmé and
Michael Dan for all the time they took to discuss this work with me, rather
than our common passion in swing dance and music!
I finally thank my family – my mother, my father, my brother, for being
with me all through this long journey. Along with them, I also thank all
those that, with distinctive love and unique attention at different moments,
have become close to me and created with me always anew, supportive
families. And those who stay, quelli unici perché veri!
Without the support of the London School of Economics, during my
one-­year LSE fellowship in 2012–2013, the postdoctoral research position
at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris in 2013–2014 and the laboratoire
IMERCCEN of the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 in
2015–2017, the production of this book would not have been possible.
The collection and development of primary analyses of this work have
been achievable thanks to my PhD studentship at the School of Oriental
and African Studies (SOAS) in London and also thanks to public and
private funding of different kinds. They include: the Public Fund for Post-
graduate Students of Regione Puglia (Italy); the Homo Sapiens Sapiens –
INPDAP (Italy); the Additional Award for Fieldwork – School of Oriental
xvi   Acknowledgements
and African Studies; the Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust; the Central
Research Fund – University of London; the Radcliffe-­Brown and Firth
Trust Funds for Social Anthropological Research – Royal Anthropological
Institute.
The images (not taken by the author herself ) reproduced in this volume
have been used thanks to the rights provided by Films Division India, the
Indian Documentary Producers Association (IDPA), Sanjay Kak and Sheba
Chhachhi.
Abbreviations and acronyms

Alcom Alternative Communication Forum

BIFF Bombay International Film Festival for Documentary and
Short Films
BLA Broadcast Licensing Authority
CENDIT Centre for Development of Instructional Technology
DD Doordarshan
FAB Films Advisory Board
FD Films Division
FFC Films Finance Corporation
FFSI Federation of Film Societies of India
FIFV Forum for Independent Films and Video
FTII Film Training Institute of India (from 1974 Film and Tele-
vision Institute of India)
I&B Information and Broadcasting (Ministry of )
IAT Institute of Agriculture and Technology
ICC Indian Cinematograph Committee 1927–1928
IDPA Independent Documentary Producers Association
IFFI International Film Festival of India
IFI Information Films of India
IIC India International Centre
INP Indian News Parade
IPTA Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association
IRE Indian Rare Earths
ISRO Indian Space Research Organisation
IVFK International Video Festival of Kerala
JNU Jawaharlal Nehru University
MIFF Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short
and Animation Films
MoI British Ministry of Information
NASA United States National Aeronautic and Space Administration
NFAI National Film Archive of India
NGO Non-­governmental organisation
PBS Public Broadcasting Service
xviii   Abbreviations and acronyms
PSBT Public Service Broadcasting Trust
PWA Progressive Writers’ Association
SAC Space Applications Centre
SEWA Self-­Employed Women’s Association
SITE Satellite Instructional Television Experiment
TCM American Technical Cooperation Mission
UFA Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft
UNI United News of India
USIS United States Information Service
VCP Video cassette player
VCR Video cassette recorder
VE 21 Visible Evidence 21
YIDFF Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
Introduction

As a researcher, you seldom state that your research might be out of

control. But all creative practices, including art and anthropology, are to
some degree excursions into the unknown. The question is instead to what
degree you articulate your lack of control or frame uncertainties.
(Robert Willim 2013)

Si je devais écrire un livre pour communiquer ce que je pense déjà, avant

d’avoir commencé à écrire, je n’aurais jamais le courage de l’entreprendre.
Je ne l’écris que parce que je ne sais pas encore exactement quoi penser de
cette chose que je voudrais tant penser.… Je suis un expérimentateur en ce
sens que j’écris pour me changer moi-­même et ne plus penser la même chose
qu’auparavant.
(Michel Foucault 2001 [1978])1

This work began by asking what is documentary film in India? Or, in the
Griersonian functional understanding of the term, what does documentary
film do in India? This was the year 2006. I had just returned from Tamil
Nadu, South India, having conducted a participatory video project with
street children. As a postgraduate student in anthropology of media at
SOAS at that time, I was aware of many audio-­visual representations
about India, mainly conducted by visual anthropologists and renowned
filmmakers from outside India. Yet, I did not know much about documen-
tary films made by local filmmakers and I became eager to discover more. I
thus decided to begin a PhD project in social anthropology, which after
one year of theoretical and methodological preparation, enabled me to
conduct 20 consecutive months of fieldwork research between October
2007 and June 2009. My journey into the field started from Chennai,
Tamil Nadu, precisely because it was a place that was already familiar to
me, thanks to my previous research. Because of the extremely successful
Tamil cinema industry, I believed that Chennai could also be the centre of
South Indian documentary film practices. However, after taking part in a
few local film events and conversing with some filmmakers based in Tamil
2   Introduction
Nadu, I became convinced that this was not the case.2 Hence, my work
was pushed away from the idea of studying a localised practice and
towards the study of a widespread national phenomenon of scattered doc-
umentary film practices, which forced me to immediately face two main
obstacles. The first was that there was not yet a published history (or
written ethnography) of such practice. The second was that, despite this,
there was a widespread, shared, discursive understanding in the field that
the history of documentary films in India was divided into two key
moments: the making of state-­government documentary films (through
colonial and postcolonial institutions); and the beginning of independent
practices, thanks to the 1970s activist filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, who
has continued to inspire documentary filmmaking up to the present day.
While at that time a written ‘history of government film institutions’ was
starting to come out in a few publications (although based on only a few
partial sources; cf. Chapters 1 and 2), the moment of ‘the independent doc-
umentary’ was yet to be written (cf. Chapter 3). In addition, several of the
contemporary filmmakers with whom I dialogued felt that they had already
moved away from Patwardhan’s filmmaking and that at present, it was
more important to focus, and thus write about, a new, ‘performative’, era
of documentary filmmaking (cf. Chapter 5), which did not have the specific
legacy of Patwardhan’s experience except for the fact that this was its
genealogical point of departure. Undoubtedly, at the time of my
2007–2009 fieldwork in India, an overall history of the development of
documentary film practices in India since colonial times was yet to be for-
mulated in a comprehensive and cohesive way.
In his Archaeology of Knowledge (2012 [1969]) Michel Foucault
explains that if in the past ‘history deciphered the traces left by men’ (or
what he calls ‘monuments’), when these traces have been converted into
‘documents’, history has become ‘that which transforms documents into
monuments’, trying ‘to define within the documentary material itself
unities, totalities, series, relations’ (2012 [1969]: 7–8, emphasis in ori-
ginal). Following this logic, it was as if I had found in my field already
reproduced (oral) ‘documents’ (that is, the belief that documentary film
practices in India had two separate moments in history) – which created a
‘monument’ of this practice (namely, that independent practices started
from a single individual, Anand Patwardhan) – and yet I found no
(written) ‘document’ (that is, a cohesive written history) to read, consult,
build on, problematise or challenge in relation to the widespread con-
temporary discourse on this practice. Rather, I found new in-­process oral
narratives (such as the contemporary discourse about performative film-
making practices), but again lacking support from (written) documents. In
other words, I was left with what Foucault (1991a [1970]) calls a ‘discur-
sive practice’. And the only way for me to question this constructed and
consolidated ‘monumental’ discourse of the development of documentary
filmmaking in India was to search for ‘original’ sources and place them in
 Introduction   3
relation to contemporary discourses and practices. Thus, my research
became an anthropological investigation of past and present histories
structured around different historical moments vis-­à-vis the aforemen-
tioned traditional two.
By the end of 2012, I had completed my doctoral studies with a thesis
entitled Documentary Film Practices in India: History of the Present;
therein I called my approach an ‘historiographical intervention’ into a
history of a practice, arguing that my dissertation made a contribution to
visual anthropology and more specifically to the study of film-­making.
With this book, which builds on my PhD findings and analyses, I go
beyond this statement. After many years of observing, listening, contrib-
uting and hence ‘living’ anthropology in my everyday academic
environment(s), and not just in relation to documentary film practices in
India, I now also see this work as part of the many ways in which we can
practise contemporary anthropologies.
The overall aim of this book is to show that studying the development
of a film practice from an anthropological perspective can enable us to go
beyond films and filmmakers, to focus on the process of discursification of
such practice and accordingly to provide novel ways of understanding a
variety of distinctive approaches to filmmaking and art practices in the
present day. The study should, however, also provide intellectual stimuli
that encourage the discipline of anthropology to reflect on its own con-
temporary practice, open up innovative forms of communication within
and beyond the discipline and, thus, foster theoretical and methodological
academic-­non-academic cross-­fertilisation.
Accordingly, this book should attract the attention of those interested in
talking about documentary films in India, beyond Anand Patwardhan and
beyond film studies. Yet, it should also contribute to debates about con-
temporary art/media practices in anthropology by making film practices part
of their discussion. Finally, the work should provide different methodological
and theoretical insights for those interested in the anthropology of practices
in general, and in the way in which we, as anthropologists, may engage with
these practices in and outside the field. If it is able to accomplish such a diffi-
cult task, this work should then be able to demonstrate that, in engaging
with each other, practice and discourse can foster an inter- and intra-­
disciplinary enriching process based on relational exchanges. The prolifera-
tion of both academic and art/media practices in both disciplinary and
non-­disciplinary domains of both art and social science is certainly increas-
ingly calling for such exchanges. Before getting into further detail though, let
us start, precisely, from the domain of ‘documentary film’.

Documentary studies, Indian cinema and film genre

In the early 1990s, two renowned documentary scholars, Jane Gaines and
Michael Renov, set up Visible Evidence, an international conference
4   Introduction
dedicated exclusively to documentary films. This was the first conference
of its kind that was able to keep its focus exclusively on documentary film
– as separate from the well-­developed field of film studies. When Visible
Evidence emerged, it was the right time to consolidate under a single
umbrella an already mushrooming phenomenon, and thus create a field of
study. Starting as a biennial encounter, Visible Evidence rapidly became an
annual meeting and today is considered one of the largest gatherings of
documentary scholars (and practitioners) from all over the world – coming
together to discuss changes in the theory and practice of documentary film.
Due to its international nature, the conference has changed location every
year and the 21st was held in India, bringing to south Asia the most up-­to-
date debates about this field of study. The conference also enabled scholars
and practitioners who specialised in (or came from) south Asia to con-
tribute to an international debate with localised examples of documentary
film, which until then had not received their due attention. A succinct
detour about the way in which this field of study has included/excluded
film practices in/from its academic discourse and how India may fit into
this academic field is necessary here.
By and large, documentary scholars have written about documentary
film through the history of its ‘usage’.3 If we read this history, we can see
that it has been mainly centred on Euro-­American examples and has pre-
sumed a linear progression organised around historical periods associated
with a specific filmmaker, a particular approach or a definite movement.
Each historical period has a particular emphasis. In the present day, we
read accounts of the beginning of documentary film through detailed por-
traits of its pioneers, such as Robert Flaherty, Dziga Vertov and John
Grierson. Passing through the decades, we can also read about documen-
tary content during World War II, followed by a history of documentary
style and technology with the advent of cinema vérité in the late 1950s.4
Finally, we find a history of politics during the 1970s, and a history of
documentary form as personal engagement during the 1990s. In such
linear reconstruction, there is always a clear connection between the histor-
ical period and the theme around which documentary practices emerged.
This linearity stopped working for documentary scholars when politics and
forms of filmmaking entered the academic debate; accordingly, an exten-
sive literature on theories of documentary film took off.5 This literature
was followed by a few attempts to revisit the history of documentaries
from specific vantage points, such as the ‘real’ (Winston 1995), the ‘experi-
mental’ (Russell 1999), the ‘performative-­political’ (Chanan 2007) and the
‘fictional’ (Caillet 2014).
In parallel to this, from the 1990s onwards, there has been a growing
tendency to critique this linear tradition of seeing the history as emerging
only from the Euro-­American axis.6 This critique has mostly come from
analyses based on the Latin American film scene which, since the 1960s,
have offered alternative narratives to the development of documentary
 Introduction   5
practice. In particular, during the 1960s, filmmakers Fernando Solanas and
Octavio Getino theorised about a ‘Third Cinema’ – that is, a cinema that
recognised the anti-­imperialist struggles of the Third World – and influenced
several activist-­filmmakers whose work became significant in the develop-
ment of a ‘new’, non-­Eurocentric, academic discourse. According to Ella
Shohat and Robert Stam (1994), the activist approach of Latin American
filmmaking became a manifesto for many countries outside the Euro-­
American axis, and the term ‘Third Cinema’ soon became ‘Third World
Cinema’ – that is, a cinema from Third World countries. This terminology
has been modified over time. For Catherine Grant and Annette Kuhn, for
instance, it became ‘World Cinema’ (2006) – an expression that rapidly
entered film festival circuits in the 1980s, and has since attracted film critics’
curiosity and academic discourses (Nichols 1994b). As a result, from the late
1990s onwards, documentary scholars have started to turn their focus
towards other countries, and their discourses have begun also to be
‘coloured’ by places such as China (Pickowicz 2006; Zhang 2006; Johnson
2006; Robinson 2009), Iran (Chaudhuri and Finn 2006; Zeydabadi-­Nejad
2010) and Japan (Nornes and Yukio 1994; Sinkler 1996; Phillips 2006).
Until very recently, India was hardly mentioned in classic works about the
international development of documentary film,7 but this was in part also
due to negligence in the literature on Indian cinema.
When this project began in 2006, documentary filmmaking was still a
marginal (if not an omitted) practice in several well-­developed academic dis-
courses as much in India as beyond India. This film practice was yet to be
considered part of Indian cinemas. Even though film scholars have always
identified a fine line between the documentary ‘style’ and the practice of the
late-­1960s and early-­1970s ‘new wave’ or ‘parallel’ cinema (cf. Chapter 3)
documentary film practices have long been omitted from the various cinemas
of India. For instance, Rachel Dwyer and Divia Patel categorise the cinemas
of India as ‘Hindi commercial’, ‘regional’ and ‘art-­house’ (2002: 8), exclud-
ing documentary film without justification. A possible reason for this lacuna
may be that documentary filmmaking in India has been perceived by these
scholars as a ‘genre’ and not a ‘cinema’, hence existing only at the level of
film production. However, if we draw on theories of ‘film genre’ (cf. Neale
1980, 1990; Jauss 1982; Cohen 1986; Altman 1999), we can also say that a
film genre cannot be addressed as a fixed category, because it is constantly
made and re-­made depending on the historical period and the agents of clas-
sification that have constituted it – namely, the film industry, critics, audi-
ences, film funding, film scholars. In this sense, documentary in India can be
seen as a film genre as much as a cinema or a practice and, as this book
should eventually suggest, it was indeed all of these things, depending on the
different historical moments in which it was articulated.
Accordingly, it may be more convincing to argue that unlike the other
types of Indian cinema (which at different points in their history shared
government funding and restrictions, filmmakers, festivals, styles or
6   Introduction
themes), documentary film developed out of a separate trajectory yet to be
clearly identified and articulated as an ‘industry’ and/or a ‘media practice’.
Other than one single historical book, From Raj to Swaraj: the Non-­
Fiction Film in India (Garga 2007), until recently almost no literature has
addressed this theme. Over the past few years a few early-­career scholars
and Indian filmmakers themselves have begun publishing articles in this
field and, to my knowledge, by the time this book comes out, there will be
at least four volumes, other than mine, that will start debating this ‘cinema’
‘genre’ or, as I prefer to say, ‘practice’ from various different perspectives.
None of these scholars, however, has yet critically engaged with the
development of documentary practices in India in relation to different
historical moments, starting from the colonial period. Rather, they all
identify a clear-­cut distinction between government film institutions, such
as the Films Division (cf. Chapter 2), and independent practices (cf. Chapter
3). As I have said, this separation was created around the film practice of a
single individual, Anand Patwardhan. He was one of the most successful
filmmakers of the late 1970s and early 1980s in terms of making films as a
critique of state power and presenting them to national and international
audiences at official festivals and less official film screenings; accordingly,
his films and narratives about his films have been circulated more than
those of anyone else. As such, they have transformed him into an icon of
independent documentary in India and to some extent, have made him ‘an
institution’ for the understanding of the development of such film practice.
Film scholars of Indian cinema, who in very recent years have gradually
been including the practice of documentary film in their academic debates
about Indian cinema, are also contributing to such a perception.8 However,
one may want to ask: to what extent can a history of a film practice be born
out of a single individual and a single set of filmmaking?
The challenge of this work is precisely to demonstrate that, even if in a
marginal way, we can identify other ‘independent’ film practices in the
same historical period as Patwardhan, but also before and after Patward-
han. Moreover, I should also point out that in relation to the idea of
‘genre’ in film practices (cf. Altman 1999), throughout this work, the
concept of ‘independent’ should also be considered a flexible category that
changes its signification depending on the different historical, social and
political moments in which it is discursively articulated (cf. Chapter 3). For
this reason, I have chosen to speak about ‘documentary practices’ rather
than ‘independent documentary practices’ and to take an inclusive, rather
than an exclusive, approach to this phenomenon. Film historians, however,
are yet to start taking these possible changes of significations seriously into
account and to include other film practices in their narratives about the
development of (independent) documentary film in India (cf. Chapter 3).
Until then, there is the risk that the narratives about Patwardhan, much
more than his actual persona and his films, continue to circulate more than
others and to contribute to the idea of him as the pioneer of a film move-
 Introduction   7
ment and, for the purposes of the analysis provided in this book, as one of
the inevitable classics (although not the only one) when examining the
process of discursification of a film practice from an anthropological per-
spective – to which I now turn my attention.

Living, doing and thinking anthropology

At the same moment as I decided to move away from Tamil Nadu and
start focusing my research on the widespread phenomenon of documentary
practices in India, I also became overwhelmed by a series of practical ‘how’
questions regarding my way of conducting this research. Indeed, how was
I to ‘grasp’ and ‘graph’ a film practice that was scattered across the whole
country? How was I to start? How should I avoid a too generalist analysis
of such an extensive practice? What should I prioritise and what ought I to
leave out? These questions (which came to me mostly because of my pre-­
fieldwork preparation during my time at the department of anthropology
at SOAS in London) made me realise that whether I liked it or not I had to
start improvising beyond all my imagined, pre-­set ethnographic methodol-
ogies. Indeed, I was left with no method.
It was at this moment that I took the rapid decision to start with the next
film festival (the International Film Festival of India – IFFI – in Goa), and
simply let myself go with whatever happened from then on. I began what
Michael Jackson calls a ‘phenomenological anthropology’ (1996: 2) and
which Paul Stoller re-­formed into a ‘sensuous ethnography’ (2009: 75). That
is, before ‘observing’ a practice, I began to ‘listen to’ and ‘live with’ anything
that was happening around me and take decisions accordingly. This shift
made me feel extremely unprepared for my possible way of ‘doing’ fieldwork
(especially in all my initial interactions with documentary filmmakers). Yet,
on the other hand, it unconsciously enabled me to learn how to ‘live’ and
‘sense’ this particular anthropological moment before converting it into a
‘doable’ methodology – that is, into an ‘ethnographic method’.
Michael Jackson (1996) argues that anthropologists often resist acknow-
ledging the contingent nature of the ethnographic here and now, the phe-
nomenological experience of our encounters. For Paul Stoller, this
dismissive approach can be another way to ‘avoid the indeterminacies of
the between – the ambiguities of social life, the tangential contours of
experience, and sensuous processes of our bodies’ (2009: 33). Anthropol-
ogy, Stoller continues, is arguably one of the most personal of the human
sciences (ibid.: 155), hence:

If you do accept the contingency of experience and present yourself

fully in the vortex of the between, then your body – the scholar’s body
– demands a fuller sensual awareness of the smells, tastes, sounds, and
textures of the lifeworld. Such an embodied presence also means that
scholars open themselves to others and absorb their words.
8   Introduction
… To accept an embodied rationality is to live anthropology and dwell
in the between within which you recognize, like wise Songhay sorcer-
ers and griots, that you cannot master sorcery, history, or knowledge;
rather, it is sorcery, history, and knowledge that masters you.
(Stoller 2009: 33; emphasis added)

It is through my ‘living’ anthropology in my everyday fieldwork that docu-

mentary filmmaking in India became part of my life 24/7 and started to
‘master’ me and my way of perceiving things around me. By letting my
sensing body go with the flux of practices across the country, I learnt how
to become part of a community before wanting to interpret it. In other
words, while ultimately interested in how filmmakers in India approach
and debate their film practice I primarily learnt how to recognise the
importance of ‘living’ anthropology while conducting fieldwork in relation
to them.
Cristina Grasseni argues that, ‘we cannot understand how people func-
tion unless we take into consideration how they have learnt to see the
world in many different, relevant and conflicting ways’ (2007: 9). In my
case, while interested in how filmmakers in India see/learn the world I
ended up also learning how ‘I’ was seeing/sensing the world at that par-
ticular time. In other words, I learnt how to ‘live’ fieldwork, and hence
anthropology, thanks to my continuous unplanned interactions with docu-
mentary filmmakers across the country. This discovery brought me to
make a set of reflections regarding the meaning of conducting fieldwork
and contributing to anthropological knowledge. ‘Living’, ‘doing’ and
‘thinking’ anthropology became for me the fundamental elements that
enabled me to carry out this project, write this book and make a contribu-
tion within and yet beyond the discipline of anthropology.
What follows is an analysis of my way of engaging with these important
moments of anthropology in and outside the field – the living, doing and
thinking anthropology. This exploration will be useful in terms of grasping
my positionality and justifying my methodological choices in relation to
the field and better engaging with my way of thinking anthropologies
outside the field. While telling a story of myself during my 2007–2009
fieldwork in India (useful for those readers interested in seeing my relation-
ship with this widespread film practice), I am also contributing a methodo-
logical and theoretical approach to the study of practices (including but
not limited to contemporary art/film practices) that are (for reasons I will
explain later) very difficult for conventional anthropology to grasp.

‘Living’ fieldwork and anthropology

Unlike the classic methodological debates in the history of anthropology
and the more recent publications about fieldwork as an ethnographic
method not exclusive to anthropology (cf. Castañeda 2006; Wright and
 Introduction   9
Schneider 2010; Schneider and Wright 2013; Caillet 2014; Sansi 2015), I
consider ‘fieldwork’ as a way of ‘living’ anthropology rather than simply a
way of ‘doing’ it. Paul Stoller states that the anthropological ‘between’ is a
very personal and liminal space between senses, art and science; it is ‘the
unavoidable space that creates creative and intellectual tension’ (Stoller
2009: 113). Living fieldwork should then be considered that particular
‘between’ – that is, an ‘art-­skill’ (rather than a ‘doable-­method’) which,
once acquired, Grasseni argues, ‘is an essential aspect, an element of prac-
tice, a taste and a meaning-­making attitude that is developed and applied
throughout everyday life’ (2007: 10). Grasseni however does not focus on
what Stoller sees as the ‘creative and intellectual tension’ of fieldwork, but
on the ‘output’, so to speak, of such tension – that is, the ‘skilled visions’
as the ‘constructed’ modalities through which we see and perceive the
world around us.
Both approaches are not far from what Tim Ingold identifies as the
process of knowing and learning. As he points out in one of his most
recent works, ‘knowing is a process of active following, of going along’,
and it is ‘by watching, listening and feeling – by paying attention to what
the world has to tell us – that we learn’ (Ingold 2013: 1). In other words,
for Ingold it is through our senses and perceptions of the world that we
‘know’ and ‘learn’ (à la Grasseni), yet from the same senses and percep-
tions we also ‘live’ the particular fieldwork moment (à la Stoller). This is,
for him, the way in which anthropology operates – that is, learning ‘from’
and studying ‘with’ the field vs. the traditional learning ‘about’ and
studying ‘of ’ the field (Ingold 2013: 3). For Ingold, this is also the way in
which anthropology becomes close to, while also establishing a distance
from, (visual) art. Indeed, in another of his recent works, Ingold makes it
clear that unlike painting and drawing, ‘anthropological writing is not an
art of description’ but a science that creates dialogue and verbal corres-
pondence (2011: 241–242). If this is the case, however, what would
happen if painting, drawing, filming as well as, Sansi (2015) would add,
any other form of visual or non-­visual contemporary art practice, stopped
‘representing’ and started ‘engaging’, ‘intervening’, ‘participating’ with the
sensible world? Then, there would no longer be a clear-­cut difference with
anthropology (à la Ingold) as painting, drawing, filming, contemporary art
and so on would become ‘arts of engagement’ more than ‘arts of descrip-
tion’. Anthropology and art practices would then be seen as much more
similar living processes.
Due to its relational human nature, Robert Edmonds states that ‘doc-
umentary is simply anthropology on film!’ (1974: 14, emphasis added)
and hence its significance must be understood through an anthro­
pological lens. What he signifies with this is that everything we see in a
documentary film is human beings interacting with each other or with
the objects around them – precisely as in the classic scenario of the
anthropological field. Hence, Edmonds says, reading the process of
10   Introduction
making documentary films from an anthropological perspective may be a
better way to engage with such practice. Similarly, yet starting not from
the textual perspective but from its production moment, Dai Vaughan
argues that any kind of fieldworker, whether an anthropologist, a
camera-­operator or a film director, must constantly deal with the contin-
gent nature of experience and hence with the continuously changing
reality we, as fieldworkers, try to grasp (1999: 56). Not dissimilar to
these views, Aline Caillet talks about the experience of the artistic terrain
as ‘une expérience de partage dans le sensible’ – that is, a sharing
moment into the sensible world which forces the contemporary artist to
be ‘omni-­perceptif ’ and to explore all possible sensorial variations of the
field (2014: 114).
In my PhD thesis, I link these debates to what anthropologist Christo-
pher Davis identifies as ‘documentary art’, which is, for Davis, another
way of talking about the ethnographic method (2000: 11; see also Battaglia
2014a). Here, I go beyond this connection and identify this process as a
way of ‘living’ fieldwork and hence anthropology – that is, a way to
conduct anthropological fieldwork as a sensorial moment in which to
acquire the art-­skills needed by any fieldworker who ‘lives’ his/her field –
whether an anthropologist, a filmmaker, an artist or simply a curious and
dedicated human being.
It is not a coincidence, I would say, that in his analysis of ‘the power of
the between’, Stoller associates the ultimate way to experience this percep-
tive moment with a filmmaker-­anthropologist, Jean Rouch – ‘a liminal
figure par excellence [… who] understood the creative power of being
between things’ (2009: 5). ‘Living’ anthropology is indeed a phenomeno-
logical moment of ‘living’ fieldwork, non-­distinctive of a discipline but
constituent of the fieldwork process per se. It is, to paraphrase the opening
sentence of this introduction, an excursion into the unknown constituent
of any creative practice, including anthropology and art (Willim 2013; see
also Wynne 2010; Caillet 2014).
However, seeing a similitude between ‘art’ and ‘anthropology’ or ‘art’
and ‘social science’ from a contemporary postmodern perspective would,
in my opinion, be restrictive. In order to be convincing and more
effective with such an argument, we should start by identifying similar-
ities by digging in much earlier anthropological and sociological discus-
sions and in much more ‘generalist’ theories within the discipline. For
instance, in his Education and Sociology in 1922, Emile Durkheim
pointed out that in order to go beyond the straightforward perception of
art as any ‘product of reflections which is not science’ (1956 [1922]:
100), it is important ‘to reserve the name of art for everything that is
pure practice without theory’ (ibid.: 101) – that is, to the practical ‘skill’
applicable to any field because acquired precisely through experience –
such as, ‘the art of the soldier, the art of the lawyer, the art of the
teacher’ (ibid.). In Durkheim’s words:
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
kukkaiskimppu. Hän ehtii sen juuri Alinelle antaa ja kuiskata:

— Sen sisässä on jäähyväistervehdys Akseli-herralta

paperilapussa. Lukekaa se heti rannasta päästyänne. Sieltä löydätte
myös unohtamanne rintaneulan, selityksen siihen ja kaikkeen…

— Köydet irti!

Ja laivan siivet ponnistelevat vettä vastaan ja laineet lyövät

laitoihin niin surullisen kolakasti. Syksyinen sankka sumu on
selvennyt ja tuon tuostakin vilahtaa aurinko pilvien lomasta tehden
huikaisevia valojuovia veteen.

Kun "Seura" sivuuttaa Vasikkasaarta, ajaa vossikka täyttä laukkaa

alas rantaan. Kärryissä istuvista herroista sanoo toinen:

— Se menee jo tuolla…

— Noo, reverte! oli lakooninen vastaus.

— Mutta kun siinä menee mukana tuo tuntematon… niinhän Akseli

sanoi.

— Mitäpä siitä, annoithan rintaneulan jo Akselille. Tunsikohan

Akseli hänet? Hän näytti hiukan omituiselta…

— Annoin kyllä, vaan olisinpa ollut huvitettu näkemään tuota

"rouvaa" — rouvaksihan Akseli häntä sanoi.

— Minnekä ajetaan, kysyi vossikka.

— Takasin — kapakkaan.
 — Niin, kapakkaan ja huomenna hevoskyydillä vaiko jo tänään,
kysyi harmistuneena toinen.

— Hyvä huommenna, paras tänäpäivänä.

Akseli oli tavannut molemmat tuttavansa Alinen portilta

palatessaan ja he olivat ilomielin ilmaisseet löytönsä hänelle.

Hiukan hämmentyen oli hän selittänyt puuhaavansa rintaneulan

palvelijansa kautta omistajalleen.

— Tunnetko ehken hänet, olivat he kysyneet.

— Noo, hän oli kylpyvieraita… oli Akseli jotenkin tyynesti

vastannut, sillä hän oli huomannut, etteivät he olleet häntä
tunteneet.

Saatuaan neulan, meni hän kotiinsa, kirjoitti suurimmassa

kiireessä selityksen sen takasinsaantiin ja liitti jokseenkin kaihoisat
jäähyväisensä paperille, jonka jätti palvelustyttösen rantaan
vietäväksi. Itse kulki hän kujakatuja pitkin melkein juoksujalassa
niemelle ja niin aivan peräniemelle, jonne istui "Seuran" sivukulkua
odottamaan. Sen oli kirjeessä niin sopinut.

Tuskin oli hän istuutunut niin jo sai seisalleen nousta, sillä Seura
tulla tohkasi salmea pitkin. Ahmien katseli Akseli ohikulkevaa alusta
ja nähtyään parin liinoja laivasta liehuvan, heilautti omaansa hiukan,
vaan käsi hervahti ja häneltä pääsi heikko huudahtus.

— Anteeksi… kuiskasi hän mielenliikutuksestaan melkein

mielipuolena… hyvästi…
 Ja hän jäi tuijottamaan laivaan, josta valkoinen nenäliina yhä
vilkutti. Hän sitä tuskin näki. Hänestä tuntui kuin olisi hän äskettäin
tehnyt anteeksiantamattoman rikoksen eikä kuitenkaan tehnyt sitä.
Aikoi heittäytyä laineihin, jotka laivan kokasta lähteneinä rannan
syliin kuollakseen kiirehtivät…

— Anteeksi… Aline…! — Hän vilkutti.

Vaan pilvinen taivas oli revennyt ja suuresta pilvien railosta paistoi

aurinko suoraan veden pintaa vasten alkaen Susisaaresta
Hietasaloon päin ja niin häikäisi häneltä selän takaa maat ja metsät.
Näytti siltä kuin ei maata olisikaan lähellä ja kuin "Seura" olisi
laskeutunut jo alas merta taivaanrannalla näkymättömiin.

Sinne näytti olevan niin pitkä matka, ääretön aivan…

Ja Akseli tuijotti yhä taivaanrannalle, vaan ei sieltä mitään

näkynyt. Kallanselkä kohisi ja vaahtopäiset aallot kohoilivat
vimmatuina, ikäänkuin eivät koskaan olisi aikoneet asettua.

VI.

Kesäinen päivä noin kahdeksan vuotta edelläkerrottujen tapahtumien

jälkeen. Niemi täydessä loistossaan. Puut vielä vaalean vihreissä
verhoissaan, vasta kun niihin Juhannuksen seudussa pukeutuneet.
Korkea heinikko teiden kahdenpuolen tuulen hengessä hiljalleen
heiluen henkii tuoresta tuoksuaan sekoittaen sitä tuomien tuohkuun
ja lehtien lemuun. Linnut juuri aamuvirsiään helteen ajaksi
lopettelevat… mehiläiset vaan uutterina ketoa kiertelevät ja kukasta
toiseen sen suloista suudelmaa ryöstääkseen rientävät.
 Ihmisiä yksin, parittain ja parvissakin kiertelee koivuja kasvavia
kujateitä. Yksi ja toinen heistä kummastellen taakseen katsoo
pariskuntaa lapsineen, jotka eivät näytä näiltä mailta olevan, rouva
mustissaan… päivänvarjokin musta. Herran musta parta ja tukka
osoittaa myös että muukalaisia ovat. Käsikainalossa he käyvät
tuontuostakin seisahtuen pienoistaan, arviolta noin neljän vuoden
vanhaa poikaansa katsomaan, se kun aina jotakin mielestään uutta
löydettyään sen katselemiseen kiintyy.

— Miksi ei Zaida mukana seurata saanut, kysyy rouva katseensa

avonaisesti käsipuolessaan kävijään kääntäen.

— Ole huoleti, Aline, kyllä katsomme kultaistamme, eihän ole

kiirettä minnekään. Sitäpaitsi saahan Zaida kyllin usein häntä vaalia
ja muuten, niin muistojenikaan tähden…

— Ai, katsoppas… pois on jo purettu… He olivat tulleet

kylpyhuoneen kohdalla, josta entinen ravintola oli pois purettu.
Äänettöminä astelivat he edelleen, laskeutuivat lammille päin niemen
kapeimmalle kohdalle, siitä kentän laitaa hiljalleen Alinelundiin päin
kävelivät.

Arvannet jo, keitä nuo muille oudot muistoissaan eläjät olivat.

Alinelundissa he istuutuivat. Poikanen yhä ympärillä häärien kukkia

etsi.

— Akseli, alotti rouva taas puheen, ajapa pois ikävät mielestäsi,

rauhoitu vihdoinkin… täällä… Käännä huomiosi luonnon tyyneen
rauhaan, johan sekin sanoo sinulle, että kaikki on sovittu…
 — Niin, melkeinpä siltä näyttää, vaan kuitenkin, kun minä elävästi
muistan kaikki. Puita tutjuttelevan tuulen intohimoiset huudot ja
oman mieleni silloiset, tahtomattani tulleet häijyt himot, niin…

— Guido! Lapseni!… Akseli!… huudahti rouva ja peitti käsillään

silmänsä.

Samassa kuului pulskahdus. Pieni poikanen oli kalliolta järveen

kaatunut. Heikon huudon päästettyään vajosi raukka vedenpinnan
alle.

Onneton isä meni yhdellä hyppäyksellä perästä, sai kiini vajoavan

lapsensa ja nosti sen sylissään maalle pyörtyneen puolisonsa eteen,
vaan, niinkuin näytti, — kuolleena.

Hän ei tiennyt, mitä tehdä. Vuosia hautomansa ajatus taas

mieleen tuli. Mielipuolen tavoin hyssytteli hän lasta sylissään ja
puoleksi kuiskaili:

— Aline… nouse… nyt on sovitus… saatu… Tahdotoin ajatusteni

rikos oli rikos taivasta vastaan… se vaati uhrin… lapseni ainoan.

— Sovitus? kuului käheä ääni. Se oli rappeutunut mustaan

kiiltävään nuttuun puettu herrasmies, joka sen kysyi. Silmät
katselivat kummasti syvistä kuopistaan, jotka eivät mitään
miellyttävää vaikutusta katsojaan tehneet.

— Mitä puhuitte sovituksesta…?

Ei Akseli häntä huomannut. Hän hyssytteli yhä lastaan, jonka

suusta pullahti vettä. Hän käänsi lapsen suun alaspäin.
 — Onnetoin! unohdin ensimäisen toimenpiteen, niin lääkäri kuin
olenkin… Lapseni, pikkuseni… tointui hän vähitellen
säikähdyksestään.

Paikalle saapui pari naista.

— Hoi, tule tänne, huusi toinen, tänne Alinelundiin!

— Aline…? huudahti herra, vaan tukahdutti kuitenkin ja alkoi

hieroa lastansa, joka aukaisi elottomat silmänsä ja sitä mukaa
heikosti hengittääkin alkoi.

— Auttakaa avutonta vaimoani, tuokaa vettä,… tuoltapuolen,

osoitti hän, valelkaa sillä ja hierokaa ohauksia.

— Hyi! Sihteeri-Timo… sanoi hiljaa naisista toinen.

— Niin, Sihteeri-Timo… Mies huokasi ja käänsi katseensa salmelle

päin ja nurmelle asettautui, siihen kauvaksi istumaan jäi.

— Missä olemme? Kutsuitko minua, Akseli kysyi tointunut rouva,

kun oli vedellä päätä valeltu, Guido…?

— Tässä… Elää…

— Niin, elää… hänhän…

— Luiskahti veteen, josta kuitenkin onnistuin pelastaa hänet,

jatkoi herra, joka näki että hetken säikähdys ja tuska olivat kovasti
vaikuttaneet hänen vaimoonsa.

Vielä pullahti vettä pienokaisen suusta ja alkoi hän vähitellen itkeä

nyyhkytellä.
 — Guido… oma… pikku Guido… silitteli rouva lastaan, jonka
hellästi isän sylistä omaansa otti.

— Nyt on rauhallinen mieleni… Jumalan kiitos! Se on sovitettu ..

sekä täällä että ylhäällä tuolla.

— Niin, Akseli, sovittu… ylhäälläkin… nyt vasta voinemme alkaa.

— Sovitettu…? tapaili mies nurmella tuntemattomien sanoja ja

katseli — outo, mielipuolen katsetta muistuttava ilme silmissään —
avaruuteen.

Mutta saaresta salmen takaa kukahteli käki alkaneen kesän onnea

ennustellen.

Petu parka…

Kauan oli tuo salainen pelko jo Petua ahdistellut. Se oli valvottanut

häntä jo monesti puoliyöhön, Sittekin kun aina nukkua yritti, säikähti
hän pienintäkin pauketta, joka tuntui hänestä kauhealta kuin maan
halkeaminen. Nyt hän niityn yli heinään ajaessaan reessä istuen taas
mietiskeli. Hän olisi tahtonut niistä muillekin kertoa, kysellä, vaan ei
uskaltanut. Nauravat, ajatteli hän, mutta ne uskovat itsekin, uskovat
varmasti, vaikkeivät ole uskovinaan…

Hänen silmänsä olivat raukeat, ja hajamielisenä katseli hän suolle

tien toisella puolen.

— Mitenhän oikeastaan käy, särkyyköhän kaikki sirpaleiksi…

kaikki…?
 Ei hän ollut ensin uskonut, vaan Pilpalla uskovaisten kokouksessa
käydessään oli hihhulien hillitön ilo ja puoleensa vetävä varmuus
hänetkin voittanut. Nehän kertoivat hajalla hapsin ja palavin silmin,
naurun ja itkun vuoroin vaihdellessa toisilleen, kuinka aika oli tullut,
jolloin heidät temmataan täältä…

— Entäpä jos se sittenkin olisi totta… jos niille nyt oli annettu
ennustuslahjat… ja tuo puhuva lapsi Pietarissa, josta sanomat
kertoivat… epävakaiset ilmat, lumisateet yhtämittaiset. Mutta, ei!…
Sanotaanhan että siitä hetkestä…

Viimeinen ajatus rauhoitti — vaan hetkeksi. Tuon sanomissa

kerrotun ihmelapsen puhe ja "kolme keskustelevaa miestä taivaan
rannalla" .. olivat ne niin varmoja todistuksia… eli olivathan ne
varoittavia ilmiöitä; niinhän ennenkin ensimäisessä tulemisessa…
tähti outo idän taivaalla… Olihan ennustettu että nuorukaisten pitää
näkyjä näkemän ja… lasten ja imeväisten suusta… Suuri Jumala!
anna minulle rauhasi ja varmuus, varmuus… totuutta pisara
tietämättömyyteeni…

Hän kuvaili jo mielessään idän taivasta, joka leimusi palavana,

samassa kuin kauhea jylinä kävi idästä länteen… enkelit yhtäkkiä
pilvistä itsensä ulospuhkaisten… suuret pasuunat huulillaan, sellaiset
pitkät, joita oli kuvissa nähnyt. Niiden hirvittävä pauhu kautta
taivaan… ihmisten valitushuudot surkeat, kohti korkeutta kohotetut
kädet… yhtäkkiä taivaan repeäminen hirveästi paukahtaen ja
kirkkaus…

Petu ummisti silmänsä. Sydän sytkytti pelosta ja huulensa

sopottivat rukousta kiihkeää ja sekavaa.
 Ladolla hän tuskin sai häkkinsä täyteen ahdetuksi. Mielessä vaan
nuo kuvat kulkupuheiden ja muistamiensa raamatun paikkojen
vahvistamina muuttelivat yhäti muotoansa. Ne olivat kauhistavia
kuvia. Hän kuvitteli mielessään kuun veriseksi, auringon tulta
syyteleväksi, kasvavaksi, kieppuvaksi hirviöksi… ja häntä peloitti. Kun
hän ei vielä olisi valmis…

Hän oli rukoillut jo kauvan illoin ennen maata panoaan, rukoillut

oikein rukoilemisen oppia, anteeksi antoa, sovitusta omasta ja
kaikkien ihmisten puolesta, vaan tuo painajainen ei poistunut.
Aamuisin oli hän virkeämpi, vaan tavatessaan toisia oli hän
huomaavinaan jotakin vaiteliasta ja salaista pelkoa heissäkin,
samallaista kuin sekin, joka häntä ahdisti. Jos minne meni, kaikkialla
siitä puhuttiin ja eräästä kirjasta, jota Petullekin olivat lukeneet,
tiesivät päivänkin… Oi, oi! Se vaan läheni…

Tällä tavoin aamuinen virkeys aina sairaloiseksi muuttui.

Jo alkoi hämärtää kun hän heinäkuormineen salolta palasi.

Verkkaan oli hevonen saanut astua, omin neuvoinsa kulkea. Vanha
talon palvelija kun oli, kuitenkin oikeita teitä osasi. Ei mikään koko
pitkän, hänestä pitkän, päivän aikana ollut hänen huomiotaan
herättänyt. Kuni unessa oli kuormansa kääntänyt, sen päällä lojuen
ajatuksissaan kotiin ajanut. Pihaan päästyään ei häkkiä latoon
tyhjentänyt, toisen piti mennä sitä tekemään.

Sairaaksi Petu itseään valitteli, päätänsä polttavan sanoi. Ei

maistunut ruoka, eikä kahvikaan kelvannut, vuoteelle pyrki. Siihen
päästyään alkoi tulesta ja taivaasta houria.

Hetkeksi raukesi, unen tapaiseen silmänsä ummisti.

 Isä rupesi äsken tullutta lehteä lukemaan. Suuresta pyrstötähdestä
siinä kerrottiin. Sen piti kohta näkyä… näinä päivinä… lännen
taivaalla. Lehti puolestaan selitti ettei siitä muka mitään vaaraa
ollut… siivolla kulkisi sivu… muutamien päivien kuluttua katoaisi.

— Mutta jos ne vain lohduttelevat, koettelevat maailmanlopun

pelkoa puheillaan poistaa. Turhaa tarinoivat… tuleehan se kohta…

Petu se näin puhelee juttuun herättyään taas… lehden käsiinsä

haki.
Varmaksi muuttui asia heti.

— Niin se on… kohta räjähtää, räjähtää!

— Poika hourii, on vilustunut, isä virkkaa ja äidin konjakkia hakea

käskee.

Ei hae äiti, on salainen uskovaisten ystävä, viinan vihaaja, itsekin

varmasti uskoo maailman kohta loppuvan.

Pilvessä on taivas. Läntisellä taivaan rannalla laajenee pilvien

lomassa laskevan auringon iltainen leimu. Vuoteellaan Petu
kuumeessa väänteleikse, äiti vierellä Jumalasta haastelee, muut
nukkuvat. Kohta äitikin, iltauninen kun on, sängyn pään pohjan
penkille painaksen, nukkuu. Yksin jää Petu hourailemaan ja
katsomaan mielikuvituksensa yhä kirkastamaa valojuormua lännen
taivaalla, jota pyrstötähdeksi luulee. Poskia ja otsaa polttaa kuni
tulella, väsyneeltä tuntuu koko ruumis ja rukousta sopottaen uupuu
hän aamupuoleen yötä rauhattomaan uneen, josta aamuvarhaalla jo
mielipuolena herää.
 Ei hän raivoo, vaan höpöttää Jumalasta, tulesta, taivaasta,
enkeleistä, pasuunista ja taas Jumalasta… Isä poikansa kummallisen
katseen nähtyään itkuun vääntyy, äitikin erehdystään katuen
katkerana ääntää:

— Petu parka…

Huhtikuulla —98.

Huokauksetonta rakkautta.

Se vasta rakkautta, kun ei tiedä koska se syttyy, kuinka se syttyy

ja kuka sen sytyttää! — — —

Ada istui kotitalonsa tikapuihin kiinnitetyssä nuorakiikussa, jonka

lapset olivat siihen laittaneet, ja lauleli lasten laulua:

"Lii, lii, liikkuu, kissan jalka se kiikkuu…"

Hän oli kummallisen leikkisällä tuulella. Pyhäaamun tyyneys ja

kirkkaus ja mikähän lieneekin mielen niin kevyeksi pehmitellyt.
Juhannuksena, joka tänä vuotena sattui lauvantaiksi, oli hän ollut
kirkolla, ja nyt muun väen sunnuntaina sinne mennessä ja osan
vanhemmasta väestä jo lauvantaina jäädessä, tullut kotimieheksi.

Oli nyt toisen palvelustytön, vanhan ruotivaivasen ja rengin kanssa

yksin talonväkeä kotosalla. Ruotivaivainen, Orpo-Aku, lojui pihanpää-
kamarin akkunan alla pientareella, piikatyttönen istui tuvassa ja luki
"sunnuntailukemista" edellisen keskiviikon lehdestä, renki mihin
lienee kadonnut, niin että Ada oli yksin pihalla.
 Hän ei ollut enään mikään lapsi. Kahdeskymmenesviides vuosi oli
jo parin, kolmen kesän takana, vaikka sitä ei hänestä itseltään
huomannut, siksi oli hän vielä nuorekkaan ja sirkeännäköinen.

Hän potkasi itseään kiikussa ylemmäksi ja veteli vapaudessaan

oikein pitkään:

"Lii-i, lii-i, liikkuu, kissan jalka se kiik… kuu…"

— No, sulla ne on nuo laulut, kuului silloin takaa.

— Onhan mulla, ostatko? vastasi Ada, äänen hyvin tuntien,

päätään kääntämättä.

— Miksikä en ostaisi, kun tietäisin, millä maksaisi. Rahoillako nuo

vai…

— Ei rahoilla vähillä, mutta…

— Ettäkö hyvillä puheilla?

— Sinunko puheillasi? Pyh!

— Jos ei minun niin muiden.

— Entäpäs jos puhuisivat muut omaan pussiinsa? Ja muuten,

mitäpä sinun puolestasi puhuisivatkaan?

— Sen puhuisivat, minkä puhumaan pyytäisin.

— Etkö itse voisi puhua kun muita puhemieheksi…

Ada punastui, potkasi kiikkua ja puri huultaan.

 — Puhemiehestäkö puhuit? toinenkin pisteliääksi muuttui.
Laulujesi ostostahan alku oli… mutta sitä suu puhuu mitä sydän
ajattelee. Sitäkö sinäkin. Ada, vielä ajattelet… ja minä kun olen
luullut että olisit jo konttisi Kyöpeliin nostanut.

— Eikö tuolla silti liene sijaa sinunkin kontillesi? Oli sattunut Adan
arimpaan ajatukseen.

— Omasi viereiseksikö olet konttiani ajatellut, vai sinnekö

vanhojen poikien puoleiselle mäelle? pisti toinen ja suupielissä kareili
tällä kertaa omituinen salatun ivan ilme, joka tavallisesti oli noille
vähän velttopiirteisille huulille vieras.

— Miksi sinä minua aina pilkkaat? Sitäkö varten tänne nytkin tulit?

— Voinhan mennä poiskin; muuten itsehän alotit ivailun.

— Niin, minä nyt olen kerran sellainen… Tarvitseeko siltä sinun

häijyksi heretä?

— Tarvinneeko tuota heretä, kun entuudestaan jo on paha. Eihän

minun tosin nytkään olisi tarvinnut enemmän kuin muulloinkaan,
vaan kun sinäkin taas… miksi meidän aina pitääkin riidellä,
ventovierasten!

Naapurin Aatu, noin kolmisen kymmenen korvilla oleva nuori mies

istuutui näin sanoen tikapuitten alimmalle piille, katseli Adaa ja
viimeisten sanojensa jälkeen syntyneen pitkän vaitiolon katkaisten
sanoi hän kuin puheenainetta muuttaakseen:

— Mansikatkin ne jo ovat kypsiä.

 Ada ajatteli ja muisteli juuri, että Aatu ja hän todellakaan tuskin
koko elinaikanaan olivat kunnon puhetta keskenään vaihtaneet.
Eiköhän tuota edes pilanpäiden sopisi kerran koettaa? Entistä
alemmalla äänellä hän sentähden vastasi:

— Joko lienevät…

— Ovat. Minä tulenkin marjasta ja ajattelin tässä nyt, että…

Hän haki aitan takaa heinikosta omatekoisen tuohisen, joka oli

täynnä tuoreita mansikoita.

— … että jos sinäkin tahtoisit maistaa. Eikö mennä tuonne

rannalle haavistoon istumaan? Olisi tuo hiukan naurettavaa, jos joku
kirkolta tulija löytäisi meidät tässä yhdessä marjoja syömästä.

— Meidät… Tuo oli Adalle niin kovin outoa. Sanaakaan sanomatta

nousi hän kiikusta ja asteli Aatun rinnalle. Äänettöminä he sitten
laskeusivat tähkäätekevän rukiin aitaamaa heinikkopolkua
rantahaavistoon, jossa nurmelle istuutuivat.

Kun marjatuohinen oli puhtaalle heinikolle yhtä etäälle

kumpaisestakin asetettu, otti Aatu heinänkärellä mehevän mansikan
suuhunsa ja sanoi:

— Minkähän tähden ihminen on niin paha?

Ada hypisteli havunneuloja marjojen välistä ja vastasi enemmän

omille ajatuksilleen kuin Aatun filosofiseen kysymykseen:

— Ethän sinä ole paha; minähän olen paha ollut…

— Lienetkö tuota sinäkään sen pahempi kuin muutkaan…

 — Elä sano, kyllä olen…

— Enhän minä ole sanonutkaan, että ei sinussakin olisi pahaa ja

hylättävää, vaan minusta tuntuu sittekin siltä kuin…

— Miltä? Sano pois, kehoitti Ada, kun Aatu yht'äkkiä tuumivana

keskeytti.

— En tiedä kehtaisiko tuota… enkä minä oikein osaa. — Syöhän

sinäkin marjoja!

— Kyllähän minä syön, vaan itsehän et… Sanohan nyt kuitenkin,

mitä ajattelit.

— Niin… arvelin sanoa, että minusta tuntuu siltä kuin… Ei, en minä
osaa… etkä sinä ymmärrä sitä, kun en ymmärrä itsekään.

— No, mitä se sellainen…? Sano nyt vaan!

Aatu katsoi heinikkoon, katsoi Adaan, järvelle ja taas Adaan, ja

kietaisten yht'äkkiä kätensä Adan vyötäreille sanoi hän aivan
tulipunaisena ja melkein hätäillen:

— Voi, kun sinä olet minusta hyvä!…

Ada punastui, katsoi heinikkoon, järvelle, Aatuun ja taas

heinikkoon ja oli vaiti. Aatun käsi sai jäädä vyötäreille.

— Ethän, hyvä Ada, pidä minua häijynä?

Ada katsoi Aatun silmiin. Ne näyttivät rehellisiltä ja oli niissä

entistään somempi ilme. Hän kietasi kätensä Aatun kaulaan ja sanoi:
 — Sinä olet ollut minusta oikein hyvä jo kauvan, en voi sanoa
kuinka kauvan, mutta oikein, oikein, oikein hyvä olet sinä vasta nyt…
siltä ainakin tuntuu.

— Ada…

— Aatu…

— Niin, molempien nimet alkavat aa:lla, tokasi Aatu hämillään,

löytäen nimistäkin synnynnäistä sopusointua.

— Voitko nyt jo sanoa, mitä äsken et voinut?

— Ajattelin sanoa, että minusta tuntuu siltä kuin minä sinua…

rakastaisin…

— Aatu!…

— Ada!…

Tässä rakkaus poltti molempien sydämistä väliseinät, niin että

kahdesta tuli yksi, mutta tänäkään päivänä eivät he vielä tiedä,
kummastako kipinä ensin syttyi.

Ei koskaan.

I.

— Onko totta että Leenua ja Tuohelaa juhannuspyhinä ensi kertaa

kuulutetaan, kysyi Manssikkalan Tilda Suontaustan vanhalta Sillalta,
joka pitkin solaa asteli kylältä Manssikkalaan päin.
 — Ss! veti Silla varovaisesti ja käänteli väärässä olevaa päätään
ympärilleen. — Hyvää iltaa, Tilda, ettehän vielä liene marjassa,
vielähän ne ovat kovalla raa'alla, toinen puoli vasta punertaa.

— Silla, sanokaapas, olisin niin utelias tietämään.

— Utelias? jamasi Silla ja käänteli päätään, ei saa olla utelias kun

on vasta neljänkolmatta vanha, vielä ennättää.

— Mutta, minun pitää tietää.

Tilda melkein tiuskasi. Hän oli tunnettu liian kuumaveriseksi.

— Vai pitää, miksi pitää?

— Älkää kiusatko. Silla kyllä tietää. Jos sanotte asiani, saatte

nimikkolampaani villat. Onko se totta… kuuluutetaanko niitä?

— Vai niin, vai pitää tietää. Mutta jos minä sanon: on totta, niin
minä valehtelen…

— Silla!

— Ja jos minä sanon: ei ole totta, niin siiloinkin minä valehtelen.

— Ovatko ne siis pelkkiä huhuja ja kulkupuheita, juoruja, ovatko,

Silla?

— Kaikki puheet ovat kulkupuheita ja lapsille ei saa antaa tulta

käteen, ne…

— Lapsille, lapsille, olenko minä lapsi, ja Tilda alkoi itkeä

sydänalaansa pidellen, minäkö lapsi, Silla, minäkö? Niin, älkää
puhuko enään lapsista…
 — Eikö lapsista…?

Silla katsoi omituisen tarkkaavasti Tildaan, joka oli aivan menehtyä

itkuunsa.

— Kas, niin, itkee kuin lapsi ikään.

— Silla, Silla, jos et usko, revin silmät päästäsi… Ei, ei, istukaa
tuohon kivelle, ei, nouskaa yli aidan, tulkaa tänne. Minulla on teille
vähän puhuttavaa.

Näin leppyen ja silmiään kuivaillen nousi Tilda veräjän yli ja

laskeusi piennarta pitkin laihon lävitse rantalehikkoon.

— Mutta älkäähän toki, ukkonen on ilmassa, väitti Silla, vaan

seurasi kuitenkin helmat koholla jälessä.

— Tulkaa nyt vaan! Onhan tuo ollut koko päivän eikä ole tuon
kummempaa… tulkaa pian etteivät näe kotoa.

Taloon oli vain noin yhden kilometrin matka.

Silla oli tällaisiin tottunut. Koko kylän tyttöjen uskottuna nuuski

hän asiat joka talosta selville, vaan ei koskaan kertonut enempää
kuin oli tarpeen; piti loput omina tietoinaan. Viimemainitun
ominaisuutensa takia pysyi hän hyvissä kirjoissa ja pidettiin häntä
yleensä ihmisenä, joka tiesi paljon, vaan kertoi vähän.

He istuivat nyt molemmat rannalle. Mitä he siellä puhuivat, emme

tiedä tahi tohdi tietää, vaan kun he myöhällä palasivat, puisteli Silla
tavallista enemmän päätään, murisi jotakin varomattomista lapsista,
oikeudesta, vääryydestä ja jos mistä.
 Tildan silmät olivat itkettyneet.

*****

Juhannuksen edellisenä lauvantaina istuu H:n rovasti

virkahuoneessaan ja selailee seuraavan sunnuntain tekstin
käsikirjoitusta. Hän on noin 50 vuoden ijillä, karkeannäköinen ja jo
paikkakunnalla kuuden vuoden olinajallaan ankaraksi
sielunpaimeneksi tunnettu. Loppuun luettuaan hymähtää hän
tyytyväisenä ja ottaa esille kuulutuspapereita. Niitä selaillessaan hän
aina puoliääneen ynähtelee ja saa siitä selville seuraavia:

— Keijolan emännän edestä kiitos… Hän oli hyväsydäminen

mummo… viime talvena vielä kinkerissä luetin häntä… Ei ollut
parasta lukunsa, vaan ehkäpä Herra on lukenut hänen sydämensä
kirjan. — Kuntakokous… hm! — Se on aika ylpeä mies tuo
Manssikkala, niinkuin koko sukukin käy täälläkin kuulutuksineen kuin
kruununvouti…

Samassa joku tuli huoneesen. Rovasti ei sitä huomannut, vaan

jatkoi:

— Kyllä Herra ylpeät nöyrryttää. Joka tahtoo olla ensimäinen, se

olkoon viimeinen… Mitäs nämä ovat? Avioliittoon kuulutettavia… Nuo
ovat kolmannen, nuo toisen kerran. Mistähän Sandra nyt saanee
uuden palvelijattaren kun Anni menee naimisiin… Ensikertaa…

Vieras ovensuussa rykäsi. Tarkoitus oi huomauttaa hiljaa ja

häiritsemättä rovastia, vaan äänessä oli jotakin hätäistä. Rovasti
nosti silmiään.
 — No, Manssikkalan Tilda, melkein huudahti rovasti, oletko tullut
viimeinkin rippikirjoitusta varten?

Sana viimeinkin näytti vihlasevan kuin veitsellä ovensuussa

seisojaa, joka oli tosiaankin ylpeän Manssikkalan ainoa ylpeä tytär
Tilda.

— En, oli lyhyt vastaus.

— Etkö?

Ja rovasti katsoi tutkivasti Tildaa, jonka äänessä oli jotakin

moitittavaa.

— Mitä varten sitte, isäsi asioillako?

— En kuin omillani.

Rovasti pani paperit pois käsistään, pyysi Tildaa istumaan,

tervehtimättä sen enempää.

— No, sanoi hän sitten odottavana, onko sydämelläsi jokin synti

painamassa? Tunnetko sisimmässäsi tarvetta keskusteluun,
saadaksesi huojennusta?

— Ehkä, oli taas lyhyt vastaus.

— Sana ehkä ei merkitse mitään. Nöyrry toki ylpeydenhengen

sokaisema lapsi, jos et minun vanhan miehen edessä niin sen sanan,
josta olet tullut lohtua hakemaan.

— Kuka on sanonut että lohtua haen?

— Mitä… mitä?… etkö siis…? Mitä varten olet tullut?

 Tilda hengitti syvään, aikoi sanoa jotakin, vaan sanat kuolivat
huulille. Hänen päätään poltti, huulensa vapisivat ja sydän löi
maltittomasti.

— No, no, — sano… Tarvitset ehkä papinkirjaa, ehkä kuulutusta

varten, uteli auttaessaan rovasti, joka näki että sanominen Tildalle
oli vaikeaa.

— En sitäkään.

— Mitä sitte?

— Tulin kysymään, kuulutetaanko Parveelan Leenaa ja Tuohelaa

juhannussa.

— Nainen! ärjäsi rovasti, onko mustasukkaisuuden perkele vaiko

vain uteliaisuus ajanut sinut tänne? Mikä antaa sinulle rohkeutta tulla
sitä täältä kysymään?

— En tule uteliaisuudesta.

Tahtomattaan oli Tildan ääni muuttunut lempeämmäksi,

vaikkeikaan rovastin kiukustuminen ollut sitä aikaansaanut.

— Mutta sano nyt jo, mikä sinua käski tänne tulemaan, leppyi
hiukan rovastikin, kun huomasi ettei käynti tapahtunut uteliaisuuden
tyydyttämiseksi.

— Minun oikeuteni.

Tuo sana oli ollut vaikea ulos tulemaan, vaan sittekuin se tuli, tuli
se niin varmana kuin vuosikymmenten kohtalot tulisivat siitä
riippumaan.
 Oikeutesi? Niin tiedä nyt siis ettei ihmisillä ole oikeutta sotkeutua
asioihin, jotka koskevat toisia ihmisiä.

Rovastille asia kävi yhä hämärämmäksi.

— Sen kyllä tiedän, vaan jos asia koskee myöskin minua?

— Kuinka, olisitko ehkä sukua noille avioliittoon aikoville?

— Ehkä.

— Kuinka paljo?

— Niin paljo, että aijon tehdä tyhjäksi koko kuulutuksen, ja minä

voin sen ja minä tahdon sen tehdä.

— Kummalleko olet sukua? kysyi rovasti ihmetellen.

— Sulhaselle, Tuohelalle.

— Miten? Lähteistäkin?

— Hän on minun kihlattu sulhaseni.

Rovasti nousi seisoalleen.

— Vai ni'in, vai niin, ja sitte menee toisen kanssa kihloihin!…

Ovathan ihmiset sanoneet Tuohelaa vähän kevytmieliseksi nuoreksi
mieheksi… vaan kuka olisi uskonut, kuka olisi uskonut!… No, sanoi
rovasti hetken jälkeen, onko sinulla mitään todistuksia?

— Todistuksia, säesti Tilda niin katkerana että rovasti säpsähti.

 — Niin, niin todistuksia… Me emme voi todistuksitta mitään tehdä
emmekä niidenkään kanssa, kuulutus on kaikessa tapauksessa
luettava, vaan asiasta voi valittaa konsistorioon. Ikävä juttu, lapseni.
Onhan sinulla sormus?

Tildassa taistelivat kahtalaiset ajatukset. Parempi puoli kehoitti

häntä vetäytymään syrjään häpeineen ja kärsimyksineen, vaan
toisaalta luontainen ylpeytensä, kadotettu ensi lempensä ja sitä
seuranneet epäilysten ja rakkauden ristiriitaiset tuskat veivät voiton
ja kerran lähdettyänsä päätti hän ajaa perille eli ainakin niin pitkälle
kuin pääsi asiassa.

— Tässä se on, sanoi hän ja päästi vahvan kultasormuksen

sormestaan.

Rovasti katseli sitä sisäpuolelta ja sanoi:

— Selvä on selvä. Tässä on kumpaisenkin teidän alkukirjaimet —

ja päivää vasten katsottuaan lisäsi rovasti: Te olette olleet kihloissa
kohta kolme vuotta.

— Viimeisen vuoden saisitte lukea neljäksi, joten niitä kaikkiaan

karttuisi kuusi.

— Ai, ai… kummassako on syy?

— Olkoon se meidän asiamme; eihän saa sotkeutua asioihin, jotka

koskevat toisia ihmisiä, pisti Tilda.

Lapsuudestaan lähtien oli Tilda ollut tuollainen eikä rovastin

osanottavaisuus vielä ollut pehmittänyt hänen ylpeyttään. Hän oli
varma oikeudestaan ja voitostaan ja vähitellen kyti koston kipinä
hänen tulisiin tuumiin taipuvassa mielessään leimuavakaksi liekiksi,
jota eivät ainakaan tulevat tuskat eikä häpeän raskas harso
tukahuttaneet.

Rovasti oli siksi ihmistuntija että osasi osiksi asettautua tuon

kärsivän naisparan asemaan ja liian oikeuden rakas jättääkseen
asian tytön katkerien puheiden takia sikseen. Hän lupasi tehdä
voitavansa, puristi Tildan kättä ja toivotti Jumalan rauhaa.

Lähtiessä kysyi hän:

— Kuka sinulle kertoi että Tuohela aikoo toisen kanssa?

— Suontaustan Silla, vastasi Tilda.

Allapäin asteli Tilda pois pappilasta. Ei valennut mielensä musta

eikä selennyt sysisen sydämensä tuskanpilvien peittämä
tulevaisuuden taivas.

II.

Parveela ja Manssikkala olivat H:n pitäjään komeimpia taloja. Oli

ulkoa päin vaikea päättää, kumpi oli varakkaampi. Matkaa talojen
välillä oli noin nelisen kilometriä ja jokseenkin keskellä oli Tuohelan
talo.

Tuohela oli ennen ollut kauppias kaupungissa, vaan sitte varoja

jonkun määrän koottuaan ja tehdaskaupungin rauhattomaan
elämään kyllästyneenä muuttanut maalle ostamalleen tilalle
asumaan. Mies ei ollut juuri vastenmielisen näköinen ja kun ikääkin
oli vain joitakin vuosia yli kahdenkymmenen, niin ei ole ihmeteltävää,
jos hän joutuikin niin sanoaksemme kahden tulen väliin. Olipa
alkuaikoina liikkeellä huhuja, että hänellä kaupungissakin olisi
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

textbookfull.com