Colour of racism

Shoma A. Chatterji

Tarun Jain’s 20-minute short film Kaala is about the oppression that African youth face in India solely because of the colour of their skin. The way these youngsters are beaten up and tortured brings forth the racial mindset of people in a country which is rich in diversity. The film is inspired by the brutal attacks on African nationals that took place in Delhi between 2016 and 2017. It explores the narrow mindset, inhuman practices and prejudices against a certain race. Such a hard-hitting story on racial discrimination has been told for the first time from India’s perspective.

“As I am a resident of Delhi, I had the opportunity of closely observing such incidents. The attacks were constant and made headlines every other day. I could do nothing about it. The idea of the film was to bring the issue to the forefront. Kaala is a hard-hitting story of a teenager, who is trapped in a situation and it may not have happened, had he been from some other race, community or group,” Jain elaborates.

The story of Kaala is brief but telling. Strange gazes, comments, gestures welcome Bryan, the protagonist to the city of Delhi. He feels uncomfortable, but meeting his new Indian girlfriend, Rashmi, in the cold winter night keeps him excited. But the incident of Rashmi abandoning him disappoints him deeply. The warm lights of the city and vibrant music pushed Bryan ahead to experience the darkest night of his life. Interestingly, every single character in the film is by people who have never faced a movie camera before. Bryan has been portrayed by Jude Boman Tony, a student of IT from Noida University from Nigeria. The rest of the cast are non-actors too. The crowd-funded film was completed with great difficulty.

“It is quite upsetting to see how we label people from the Northeast with adjectives like Chinky, Chinese, Nepali and so on and how every African is immediately dubbed a Nigerian, none of which is true. We also draw immediate and baseless conclusions on their character dubbing them as drug addicts, drug pushers or prostitutes — none of which is based on fact,” says Tarun. He adds, “Kaala will dispel this myth with a humane and moving story of how Bryan actually helps save the life of one of his persecutors, much to the surprise of those who did not like him only because of the colour of his skin.”

Kaala took its inspiration from the attack on a French teacher Masonda Ketada Oliver, who was from Congo and was killed following an argument with an  auto-rickshaw driver. He was minutes away from his 23rd birthday on the night he was killed. “Kaala is not entirely based on this particular incident but elements have been gathered from this real-life incident to knit my story,” he sums up.

Jain’s earlier film Amma Meri was based on the financial crisis among farmers in Haryana. Amma Meri narrated the story of how Balram, an impoverished, middle-aged son burdened with financial troubles tries to negotiate his way through life with a very old and sick mother, an unmarried daughter and struggles with his job of distributing milk in the village and the gossip around his frustrated spinster daughter when his father dies suddenly.