{"id":7672,"date":"2017-12-30T14:03:07","date_gmt":"2017-12-30T14:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/?p=7672"},"modified":"2017-12-30T14:18:52","modified_gmt":"2017-12-30T14:18:52","slug":"portraying-the-life-and-myths-of-paniyars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/?p=7672","title":{"rendered":"Portraying the life and myths of Paniyars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Documentary maker Aneez K. Mappila<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Feature-length documentary on the Wayanad tribe\u2019s struggle for existence<\/h2>\n
\n

A humdrum yet clear rendition of\u00a0Penappattu<\/em>, the ballad of the Paniyar tribe of Wayanad with its narrative on their origin and life, soaks the Paniya household in bereavement seven days after someone\u2019s parting.<\/p>\n

The intoner,\u00a0Athali<\/em>, takes no break as he calmly retells from morning, well into the brooding night, the course of his clan\u2019s struggle for existence from the beginning. \u201cIt\u2019s like a swirling song of the dead \u2013 the soul of their forbears rattling out their saga,\u201d says Aneez K. Mappila, who has authored the life and death of Paniyars in a feature-length documentary,\u00a0The Slave Genesis<\/em>. \u201cThe tribe, as you see in the film, is deeply and inwardly spiritual.\u201d The Paniyars believe that long ago, a feudal landlord, Ithimala Gowda, also referred to as Ithimala Pappan, had trapped them using a hand net and engaged them for labour in the fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no paddy field, coffee or pepper plantation in Wayanad, especially those owned by settlers, that hasn\u2019t used their labour. The practice continues to date,\u201d says Aneez, from Kalpetta. The film, shot single-handedly over three and a half years, has a scene in which Aneez\u2019s grandfather Moidu Haji, who has since died, narrates the story of his grandfather Pakramar, left with no other option, migrating to Wayanad in the 1860s with three of his friends. \u201cThey bought 32 acres of land from a Gowda, who also parcelled out a few Paniyars for tilling their fields. The Paniyas were paid in kind, with a portion of rice as wages,\u201d Haji says in the film. It was his long association with the Paniya workers that prompted Aneez to make a film on their life and after-life. The film opens with a personalised childhood recollection. \u201cI was a single-man crew and as I went about shooting, a suicide happened in the community, which led me to their pithy\u00a0Penappattu.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

From a death and the superstitions surrounding it, the film takes us through various facets of the Paniya life, all punctuated with hardship, misery and tales of exploitation. \u201cThey realise they\u2019ve been historically exploited, as we understand from the\u00a0Penappattu<\/em>\u00a0in which the Gowda, eager to have more of their ilk, asks Paniya siblings to stay man and woman below the waist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cut to modern times, scenes of the elaborate ritual following a girl attaining menarche are followed by episodes of young men getting entangled in POCSO cases, thanks to the tribe\u2019s practice of marrying off girls young.<\/p>\n

A graduate in English, he worked as a journalist for sometime before taking documentaries on Wayanad\u2019s agrobiodiversity and tribal food security.<\/p>\n

The Slave Genesis\u00a0<\/em>was produced with support from DOCEDGE-Bang, crowdfunding from the Kalpetta Film Fraternity and his own Canopy Black production.<\/p>\n

source: http:\/\/www.thehindu.com \/ The Hindu \/ Home> News> Cities> Kochi \/ by S. Anandan \/ Kochi – December 28th, 2017<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feature-length documentary on the Wayanad tribe\u2019s struggle for existence A humdrum yet clear rendition of\u00a0Penappattu, the ballad of the Paniyar tribe of Wayanad with its narrative on their origin and life, soaks the Paniya household in bereavement seven days after someone\u2019s parting. The intoner,\u00a0Athali, takes no break as he calmly retells from morning, well into … Continue reading Portraying the life and myths of Paniyars<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,14,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artsculture-entertainment","category-historical-links-pre-independence","category-records-all","category-world-opinion"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7672"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7678,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7672\/revisions\/7678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}