Varun Chopra is a 23-year-old Masters’ student at the School of Film and Television, Loyola Marymount University (LMU), Los Angeles. He graduated from Delhi University in 2014.
The young filmmaker is now on his way to the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016, with his short film God on a Leash. It’s going to the festival as part of Cannes Court Metrage, the Short Film Corner.
God on a Leash, shot in the summer of 2015, offers a glimpse into the life of the madari and behrupiya communities.
The madari’s ancestral occupation is training monkeys to act like humans. The behrupiya (impressionists) community, on the other hand, consists of traditional impressionists who train their kids to act like apes.
Both these fringe communities survive under abject poverty, tied firmly to a belief in the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, also a symbol of selfless devotion and strength.
I followed a madari who sits on Hanuman Temple behind Kirori Mal College, North Campus, University of Delhi. He had a monkey family where the youngest member was less than a year old. The madari told me that when he grows up he’ll put a leash on the baby and train him. The future of this baby monkey seemed bleak, sort of set in stone.Varun Chopra
The monkeys’ teeth are removed with a hammer as part of training, which also involves starving them for days. This is juxtaposed against the behrupiyas living in the Nirankari Colony jhuggi or slum, forced by poverty to perform tricks like an animal.
The two narratives mingle in the film – the plight of the monkeys as harrowing as those of the behrupiya child.
Both the madari’s monkey and the behrupiya child convene to perform at the Hanuman temple. In a role reversal battle between animal as human, and human as animal, under the pretext of religion, who would come out triumphant? Is there even a triumph to begin with?Varun Chopra
God on a Leash talks about two ancestral art-forms and their survival through the veneration of Hanuman. It is the story of being held on a leash in the hands of faith, heritage and poverty that explores the concept of humanism and divinity.
The film would be soon available on online portals. For more information about God on a Leash, click here.
Video Editor: Kunal Mehra