All language subtitles for Phantom India - 06

PHANTOM INDIA
Reflections on a Journey

In order to film
these women gathering fodder,

we drove a whole day
over nearly impassable roads

and hiked six hours up a mountain.

ItS like traveling back in time.

These women belong
to the Bondo tribe,

descendants of /ndia s
earliest inhabitants.

About 15000 Bondo are divided
into a few hundred villages

perched at 4, 000 feet in the forest
at the tip of the state of Orissa.

The Bondo are one of the many aboriginal
peoples who've survived until today,

conserving their way of life
and ancestral religion.

The waves of invaders,
and in particular the Aryans,

gradually forced them
into the most inaccessible mountains

with the poorest soil in central India.

The men still hunt with bow and arrow
and are extraordinarily skilled

But game has become scarce.

The bow also serves as defense against
the numerous bears living in the forest

The Bondo language has nothing
in common with other Indian languages-

The women and children stand
before us with no hint of surprise.

They 're used to intruders-
This village, Mudu/xjoada,

has the privilege of being
the Bondo administrative center,

privilege manifest in the presence
of a police station, a school

and an Infirmary.

I in? told the Bondo refuse to send
their children to the government school,

and indeed, ifs almost deserted

They also refuse to be vaccinated,
though ifs mandatory in India,

and the community
is ravaged by smallpox

The women wear
an impressive number of neck/aces,

which weigh on their chests.

Once made of copper, the neck/aces
are now mass-produced in brass

and sold at the market.

The women weave
brightly colored cloth,

which they wear /ow
on their buttocks like tiny loincloths-

That and neck/aces
are their only apparel.

The Bondo ignore
Indian taboos on cattle.

They slaughter cows, eat their flesh,

and sacrifice them
for religious ceremonies.

Near the village,

these dreary buildings
are the police station, the school,

and a shack for the tax collector.

On his annual visit,
he often finds the village empty.

The Bondo refuse to pa y taxes

and hide in the forest.

The next day, we hiked
five mi/es through the forest

to move away from the police

and visit another village, Kisampada.

This time our arrival
provokes a slight panic.

The women and children
hide in their huts.

The men of the village are away,
except these two,

who are building
a mud-and- wattle house

using a technique similar
to African poto-poto houses-

Many of the aboriginal tribes
of /ndia are famous

for their dormitories.

In these buildings,
set apart from the rest,

boys and girls mix with total
sexual freedom before marriage.

The dormitories also serve
as a matchmaking service,

a kind of club
where they get to know each other

before choosing a spouse.

I ask where the dormitory is
in this village.

I'm told there isn't one anymore,
that it was tom down,

and anyway,
ifs not marrying season-

Anglo-Indian Puritanism
has left its mark here too.

We met the leader of the village,

an old man who speaks a little Oriya,
the language of the plains.

He explains that life has become
very difi7cu/t for the villagers

since the Direction of Water and Forests
appropriated their /and for reforesting.

Now the y 're forced
deep into the forest, miles awa y,

to secretly burn trees to create
clearings in which to plant crops-

The main occupation
of Bondo women is making brooms.

They sell these brooms
each week at the market.

Ifs their only means of trade,

their only business
with the outside world.

I'm struck by the sadness
in many of their faces.

Life seems extremely hard here.

Poverty is everywhere in India,

but among these forgotten populations
that are s/o w/y disappearing,

it's heart-breaking.

On this monolithic platform,
now fallen out of use,

rituals were celebrated,

as well as animal sacrifice.

Bondo mythology is very complicated

with a supreme god, who is the sun,

and the worship
of protective earth spirits.

They bum their dead like the Hindus.

Every Sunday, the Bondo villagers
descend the mountain

to g0 to the local market
held in Mundigudal.

It's their only point of contact
with what we call civilization-

At the entrance to the market,
they pa y a kind of tax

Government employees take some
brooms from each woman's bundle,

but not without arguments
and endless discussions.

It seems t0 be a new tax
which the Bondo fiercely protest'.

Then the women deliver
their brooms to merchants,

who sell them
as far away as Calcutta.

The price is set in advance."
one rupee for 10 brooms.

It takes almost an hour
to make a broom,

which means they earn 70 cent/mes
for a full dayS work.

But ifs the Bondos ' only means
of obtaining rupees-

The Bondo women
don't hold on to their money for long.

They use it to buy neck/aces-

They take their time, try them on,
and discuss them.

To us, all the neck/aces
seem the same,

but to the Bondo women,
the y 're all difierenz'.

One of the characteristics
of Bondo society

is that the women are older
than their husbands.

Generally, a 20-year-old girl
will marry a 14-year-old.

Marriage follows
strict exogamous rules-

ifs forbidden to take a husband
from your own village-

Divorce isn't a rare occurrence.

/f a husband leaves his wife,
he sends his in-laws a goat.

/f the wife leaves, her new husband
gives her ex three goats.

The Bondo don't have writing.

They don't have last names either.

They're all cal/ed
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

according t0 their day of birth,

which, ob vious/x isn't easy
on tax collectors or policemen-

At this market, barter is
a common method of exchange.

These Bondo women brought
some rice, as well as brooms,

and trade it for peppers.

The Bondo are under increasing
pressure from the people of the plains.

They have great trouble
adapting to modern life,

desperately refusing
t0 become integrated

They want t0 be left alone
in the mountains,

to live as the y always have-

Many Indian government olficia/s
despise then? and consider then? savages-

They want to force the women
to wear saris,

close the remaining dormitories,
and forbid the slaughter of cows.

The B0nd0s' days are numbered.

Many have begun leaving the mountains
to join the working masses-

They find jobs building roads,
like these men,

or as field hands.

They blend
into the anonymous masses

and lose their customs and identity.

They dress like Indians
and become outcastes

at the lowest level of society.

We left the Bondo.

In a nearby village,
a red flag flies above a house.

It's the home of a Communist activist

who's trying to politicize-
the region's tribal populations-

He explains how difiicu/t his task is

due to the distances, illiteracy,
and especially the language barrier."

Each tribe speaks its own language.

He says the tribes were robbed not only
by the Direction of Water and Forests,

but also by landowners
from the plains,

who take advantage of
the tribes ' lack of land deeds-

The tribes are also trapped
by moneylenders,

who end up seizing their lands.

A law was recently passed

returning some uncultivated
government land to the tribes,

but it hasn 't been enforced.

The Communists try to organize them-

There hasn't been any trouble here yet,

but in nearby Andhra Pradesh,

there are violent clashes
between tribes and farmers.

The police, in the name of the law -
the landowners ' law -

reestablish order
by means of massive arrests.

In India, we 're always surprised
to come across a church-

There are many in K era/a.

It's the only state
with a large Christian minority.

Despite a long history
of evange/ization,

ifs obvious
that Christianity failed in India-

The Portuguese, fanatic converters,
had little impact here,

despite St. Francis Xaviers
visit t0 Goa.

The English,
too clever to attack Hinduism,

se Vere/y limited
missionary efio/fs at conversion.

The rare conversions occurred at
the extreme ends of the caste system."

among Brahmans and Untouchables.

Indians who become Christians
don't give up the caste hierarchies-

Until the beginning of the century,
a church in Madras

was divided
its entire length by a wall

so Catholics of the higher castes
could worship

without being tainted
by the Catholic Untouchables.

Indian Christians
are fanatical believers,

but they seemed uncomfortable, as if
laboring under an inferiority comp/ex

in relation to both Hindus
and Europeans,

as if tom between two cultures,
their identity lost.

This is a young Syriac Christian priest.

According to tradition, the Syriac
church of Kera/a was founded

by St. Thomas the Apostle
when he landed at Crangahore in 52 A.D.

and converted many Brahmans.

The Christians of Kera/a,
violently anti-Communist,

loyally support the Congress Party.

There are also Jews in India.

Not many, about a hundred,
living near their synagogue

in a district in the city of Cochin.

We spoke with Simon Coder,

community leader and
prosperous shopkeeper in the city.

“We've been here
for the last 1, .900 years or more.

We're supposed to have come to Cochin
even before the destruction of the Temple.

We were never persecuted here,

except by the Portuguese. ”

India is the only country in the world
that never persecuted the Jews.

“My fathers family
came here about 200 years ago

from Baghdad.

My mothers family is supposed to have
come from Spain after the Inquisition. ”

The Jews play an important role
in the oizj/s economy.

They like to sa y
that the maharajah of Cochin

once had a militia of Jewish soldiers.

“I'm too old and too poor
to go to Israel.

I'm 76 years old. ”

"The community's always been small,
about 300.

Now there are less than
a hundred of us.

We get along well with the Indians,
but we never intermarry. ”

The community keeps to itself and all
the Jews here are more or less related

“We 're very happy here.

Our only prob/em is that
the community is disappearing.

Families no longer
have many children,

and many have lefi for Israel
or are planning to go-

I might go,
but only if the Indian government

allows us to take out our money. ”

There's something degenerate
and sickly about them-

In this country
where all races have mixed,

the pure bloodline jealously
guarded by this tiny community

leads to sterility.

In Pond/cherry,
a former French trading outpost',

the entire downtown
is painted a uniform white and gray.

These buildings belong to the ashram,

a religious community
that's growing ceaselessly.

lts spiritual leader is a French woman
whee now very old

and who's simply cal/ed "the Mother. ”

She lives in retreat,
and we weren't able to film her

but only record her voice.

It never happens the same way twice.

Generally, it happens
when we least expect it.

And ifs usually.--

when we've surrendered

our so-ca/led kno w/edge,

our can victions,

and abandoned all hope

that we enter a state
where we 're able to receive it.

The ashram S founder, Sri Aurobindo,

died in 1.950.

He was not cremated but buried,

as is customary in India
for very holy people.

Aurobihdoe tomb is the center
of the ashram S spiritual life.

His followers come at all hours
to pray and meditate.

Revelation is always present.

Ifs always here-

We 're the ones who don't let it in.

Know/edge is always present.

Enlightenment is always present',
floating above everything,

ready to be received.

Ifs only because
we 're so completely blinded

by everything we think we know
and want to do

that we can't receive it.

But at the moment we surrender,
for whatever reason,

it makes us

a bit passive and open,

and that's when we receive it.

They come from all over the world
and all say the same thing."

“I was seeking, and here I found. ”

“I worked in the hotel industry
as a chef

I was in a dozen countries in Europe.

Then I went to Australia,
where I spent 13 years-

I oouldn 't settle down-
I was looking for something.

I needed an inner life,
and that's how I came here-

I'm home here, really home.

I in? happy. I found the answers
to the questions of m y life- ”

“/ left Italy in 1.964
without a specific destination.

I'd read verses of the Bhagavad Gita
that really impressed me,

and I'd also noticed the transformation

on people's faces
when the y returned from India-

Their faces were calm,
not stressed like typical Europeans.

I 'd intended to tra ve/
through India up to the Himalayas-

But after a few days of travel,
I arrived here

and found what I was looking for. ”

“I was brought up in Sweden- Not very
much religion - the y 're Protestants-

I had practically
no religious background.

God was not a living presence.
That didn't exist there.

I didn't know I had a soul.

Essentially, it was questions."

'Who am I?
Why am / like this?

Why is the world the way it is?'

lcina/lx I got to the essential."

'Why am / here?
ls there a reason for life?”

“God had given me everything
a man could wish for."

prestige, money, good family, health.

I was president of a number
of companies and industries,

yet I wasn't satisfied.

Something was missing.
I needed a goal in life-

When / read Aurobindok book,
Synthesis of Yoga,

it opened m y eyes, not only
to problems I was already aware 01f

but to many others
I 'd never thought of

/ts answers were so complete
that / had no questions left

I didn't waste a minute
coming here to devote myself

to the highest ideal
to be found today. ”

Members who wish to do
a solitary retreat

stay in this beautiful building
constructed by a Japanese follower.

They live in solitary cells
and spend several hours each day

in meditation.

The ashram has a school
with 700 students.

The children are allowed
to freely choose

the subjects they study.

This very highly regarded school
receives students from across /ndia.

Joining the ashram doesn't mean
withdrawing from the war/d.

On the contrary, believers
are encouraged to lead an active life

and to exercise every day.

The ashram is very active
and very prosperous.

The numerous believers
who've come t0 live here

brought their fortunes with them.

With this money, they set up
workshops, a modern printing press,

stores and a farm,

all run by qualified
European technicians

belonging to the ashram-

Today its the largest business
in Pond/cherry.

The Indian government
has exempted them from taxes.

Disciples here lead a comfortable
but austere life.

They must practice celibacy
and must not drink or smoke.

Sometimes these rules can be bent.

Every evening, the elderly disciples,
those who do ofiice work,

come to exercise with an instructor.

The oldest is 85 years old.

“We believe in evolution.

A day will come when the human body
will undergo a transformation.

Transcending the limits of reason,

the new man will achieve,
through inner enlightenment',

a state of superconsciousness

that will set him free,
and all of humanity too. ”

Ambu is the ashrams
hatha yoga master.

He allowed us to film
his daily exercises, the asanas-

The asanas are merely one of eight
successive degrees of hatha yoga,

which also include breath control

self-restraint and meditation.

Ambu is over 60 years old.

“A10, I don't practice every da y,
because I in? lazy.

But I should practice an hour a day.

'Hatha ' means persistence. ”

More than the spiritual dimension
of hatha yoga,

Ambu stresses its physical benefits.

It stead/es the nerves,
purifies the system,

and relieves rheumatism and sciatica.

The ashram has a large project."

to build A uro ville,
a city for the man of the future,

a few miles from Pond/cherry.

This ideal city is still
in the planning stages.

The site was inaugurated
by solemnly placing in this monument

a bit of earth
from every part of the globe.

",4 uro ville is open to all.

Everyone who seeks a better life,
who wants to work for world unity,

regardless of their race, religion,
nationality, or caste.

No one will lack for anything
nor have to work for a living.

Everyone will do the work they enjoy.

Yes, i2' will be expensive to build,
but I in? sure we 'll find the financing,

as I myself am a man of finance- ”

Sri Aurobindo told us -
it's the core of his message -

that this evolution
is occurring now -

They ire annoying,
this rich Indian businessman

who found his road to Damascus,
and this pompous Frenchman.

To my mind, all mystical experience
is accompanied by a certain anguish,

or at least anxiety.

There s nothing like that here. They've
found happiness, their souls are at peace,

and they sincerely believe
they'll save the world.

Maybe they're right.

Why are we alive?

Why do human beings exist?

Why does there exist

a feeling of our own imperfection...

that there S something
other than what we are

and above all,
than what we know?

There's something else
to discover and express-

But there are countless paths.

There S a difiereht path
for each person.

But we all feel the same thing."

that something exists
beyond what we are,

beyond what we know,
beyond what we 're capable o/f

something that speaks to us-

So, you'll leave here

and take a memory with you.

Those who wish to know,
those who feel the heed,

will always return.

In the Ni/giri mountains,
at an altitude of 8, 000 feet,

we found the ideal society."

the Toda tribe.

Today, there are only 800 Toda.

For untold centuries they've lived
in these isolated mountains,

where their solitude was undisturbed

until the arrival of the English.

Certain ethnologists
claim they're of Sumerian origin.

They 're also said to be descendants
of A /exander's soldiers-

But the Toda believe their mother
goddess waved a magic wand

and magnificent bufia/o
emerged from the river.

Hanging from a bufia/o S tail
was a Toda.

No Toda girl is a virgin
past the age of 13.

Before puberty, they 're entrusted to
an experienced male to learn /0 venrakfng.

These lessons
are part of their education,

just like singing and cooking.

Sex is a natural need,

and throughout their lives,
the Toda practice free love.

The Toda language
has no word for sex.

They use the words “fruit” or “food. ”

Children don't go to school.

Their education comes
from their contact with nature.

They often improvise
collective poems like this one,

which tells of our arrival
in mocking fashion.

Toda houses are made of wood.

The doors are always
flush with the ground.

Divided into 16 clans,
the Toda are spread

across their vast territory
in small hamlets of a few houses.

Marriages are arranged from birth,

but since there are
fewer women than men,

it's customary for a girl to marry
several brothers of the same family.

Since absolute sexual freedom
prevails throughout the tribe,

paternity is impossible to establish-

The oldest brother is the legal father.

A pastoral people,
the Toda never wanted to farm-

They're vegetarians,
subsisting on milk from their bufia/o,

honey and wild fruits,

and grains grown
by neighboring tribes,

whom they allow to cultivate
some of their land

The land belongs to the community
and cannot be sold.

The Toda have never waged war,
never had weapons.

They have no laws,
leaders, or hierarchy.

/f a serious disagreement
arises between two Toda,

its settled by a council of elders
called for the occasion.

The Todas' bufia/o are longhorns,
unique in India.

They're sacred
and constitute the sole activity

and sole wealth of the tribe.

The Toda consider
all other animals impure.

All the men, in turn,
serve as priest for a year.

The priest lives alone in the temple.

No one can approach or touch him,

and he must remain eel/bate.

Each temple contains
a sacred piece of metal,

which is revered by the clan.

Every time a Toda woman
meets a man from the tribe,

she kneels and he touches
his feet t0 her forehead

When a Toda dies,
he goes neither t0 heaven nor hell.

According to legend,
he 'll live forever in a wild valley

that really exists,
not far from their territory.

His body and personal belongings
are burnt,

and two of his bufia/o are killed
for company in his new world.

The Toda have contact with civilization,
as this ceremony proves.

Ifs the inauguration
of an all-terrain medical van

that will bring modern medicine
to the villages-

The Toda improvise a dance
for the occasion.

But civilization also means
restrictions and encroachment

The English built a mountain resort
in the middle of Toda territory,

and it has grown.

Indians have moved there from
the plains for the richness of the soil.

Industries have been created,

and the Toda territory
shrinks day by day.

This government ofiicia/ explains
that the Ofiice of Water and Forest

will annex their grazing grounds
to plant terebinth-

It's a death sentence for the Toda-

They'll be forced to abandon
their traditional way of life.

The Toda don't make a tragedy of it.

They dance around the medical van

as if to exorcise
the civilization it symbolizes.

They've seen many others
since the English arrived

They've withstood missionaries,
ethnologists, tourists and filmmakers.

But this may be the final stroke.

One might say,
“What do 800 Toda matter anyway

in a country of half a billion people ?”

But these 800 Toda are
the last remnants of a free society

that never knew war, hunger,
prudishness, or injustice.

Translation by LYNN MASSEY
for SUBTEXT SUBTITLING