Writing in the WSJ about a program to provide food security to India’s poor, Rupa Subramanya reveals her ideological bias in towards the end of the article: After all, if someone is offering to give you free food, why would you bother to get a job and earn income so that you can feed yourself? [...]
We have some very exciting announcements to make regarding our documentary film, Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! But before I get to that, I wanted to thank everyone who contributed to our Summer fundraising campaign. We raised just over $5,000 through the generous donations of over fifty people. Thank you all so much! And thanks [...]
We are very happy to announce that our film, Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!, has been officially selected to have its world premiere at the 2011 Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in October! The Independent listed BIFF (“Asia’s largest film festival”) as one of the top twelve film festivals of 2011. In order to make [...]
We are happy to finally be able to share the trailer for our new film, Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! See our website for more info.
Activist and playwright Dakxin Bajrange was arrested on May 11th, 2003 for allegedly assaulting Prahlad Chhara. The real reason? Performing plays critical of the police. News of his arrest motivated Shashwati and I to go to India and make the documentary film, Acting Like a Thief. That trip changed our lives – and while Dakxin [...]
(Reposted from Vimukta.) [Attention: Please help us raise Vimukta's membership count! Scroll to the end for details.] The Budhan Theatre Library is much more than just a library; its a community center and an informal school as well. But its first and foremost a library – and a very good one at that! It houses [...]
Yesterday Chhara playwright and documentary filmmaker Dakxin Chhara posted a short “musical documentary” to YouTube which shows an original composition by the children of Budhan Theatre. What isn’t revealed until the end of the film is that the musical instruments they are playing are entirely composed of utensils used to brew liquor. Brewing liquor is [...]
The BBC has a nice little photo essay about voting rights for Daffers [pronounced Dafirs], a DNT community. I suspect that these photos might be the same ones mentioned in this 2006 article by my friend Roxy Gagdekar: From eking out a living as highway robbers, members of the once “most dangerous” denotified tribe – [...]
I finally finished editing and uploading my photos from last February’s shoot in Chharanagar. I did a lot of portraits this time, but haven’t yet updated the information about who is who. You can see the slideshow here (or click on the photo).
If thou lend money to any of My people, even to the poor with thee, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest. (Exodus, 22:25) The key texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all very clear about the sins of lending money for interest – and [...]