‘Meelon Dur’, an evocative documentary by Megha Acharya, unfolds a threatening tale of unorganised labour and economic debts in a rapidly urbanising India. Three migrant female labourers from Bundelkhand working in a brick kiln, form the film’s template. Shoma A. Chatterji explains what drove Acharya to portray the story on celluloid screen.
Meelon Dur is a 50-minute documentary film directed by Megha Acharya which explores the rare situation of women brick kiln workers who are forced to migrate from their native homes to Bundelkhand. The film is focused mainly on three such women. They are Ramsakhi, Keshkhali and Gaura.
With 50 to 70 percent of households which experience annual migration, Bundelkhand, a parched region in Central India comprises the highest rates of migration in the country. Many families from this area migrate to work in brick kilns used for building and construction purposes across India. During the eight-month migration cycle, from November to June, the kiln workers who live in extreme financial pressure, take loans from the kiln owners through contractors and this loan is deducted from their wages. The labourers, both men and women, are paid their salaries measured in terms of the number of bricks they have made at the end of their eight-month contracts before they travel back to their original homes.
Meelon Dur was seen by this writer courtesy a screener sent by Kriti Film Club that screens and shares documentary films on development, environment, and socially relevant issues, in an effort to positively influence mindsets and behaviour towards creating an equal, just, and peaceful world.
The documentary has been produced by Khabar Lahariya, a feminist media network, along with two professors Paula Chakravarty, and Michelle Buckley from NYU and the University of Toronto respectively. Both the professors had reached out to Khabar Lahariya for doing field research for them on research they were working on.
Gaura, Keshkali and Ramsakhi’s families migrate to a brick kiln in UP. When the film opens in November 2021, they are already under debts of Rs. 30,000, Rs.40,000 and Rs.60,000 respectively. “Every year, we decide not to come back here,” says Gaura. “But after going back home, we find no work at all and are forced to get back again for the next season.”
The film depicts visually and very realistically, the vicious circle within which these women work — loans – migration – work in brick kilns – loans – work in brick kilns – returning home with a burden of loans – coming back again in the next season. The film focusses mainly on the large number of women who work in these brick kilns collecting the wet mud, shaping them into rectangular cubes, pouring them into moulds and putting them out to dry.
Sheelu, a brick kiln contractor and worker states that Covid 19 struck a severe blow to the production of bricks which came down to 50,000 bricks specially as work had to stop due to the sudden and heavy monsoons and the normal average of 100,000 bricks during the season could not be reached. The film covers the time span beginning from November 2021 and closes in August 2022 when the last migrant family is packing to go back home.
Acharya explains that she named the film Meelon Dur because of the speed of tempo journeys that labourers make to far off places for work. Inter-state migration, intra state migration of labourers spell out the spirit of the film. There are bhojpuri songs that talk about migration to far off places in order to fill the stomach.
It is interesting to see the workers preparing for elections during voting time if there are elections held during the season. But as the workers live in terribly precarious conditions where they do not get water even to take their daily bath and cooking becomes a precarious scarcity because the price of cooking oil at around Rs.170 per liter is beyond their means. But at the same time, the film shows how the women workers celebrate Holi in March alongwith their children who live without schooling as their mothers are busy working in the kilns and there are no primary schools in the area.
Director Acharya says, “My favourite moment was when Laxmi, a character in the film says that they love spending Holi in the kilns as they are independent and free here. This was in sharp contrast with the situation in their parents’ or in-laws’ homes where they would remain within the confines of the concrete. It says so much about the complexities in their life. They experience freedom in a space that has otherwise the tendency of being so exploitative. Also – the entire crew loved Holi! We played and danced with them too.”
The camera catches the women making sweets for Holi and celebrating the festival of colours with lots of song and dance which shows that despite the precarious condition of their lives, they know how to extract some moments of happiness. “The emotions stuffed inside me do not die but I cannot take serious decisions because we live on a day-to-day basis and life does not offer us any choice,” says one of them.
The film shows how production had to stop completely when monsoons lashed the areas and the workers had to sit it out. We are also informed that at least ten dead bodies of workers are cremated everyday during the brick-making season. During the making of the film heavy monsoons went on for 45 days and production dwindled from 1,70,000 per annum to 100,000 per annum that year. During this off-season from work, the camera focusses on some of the women making samosas on their ovens for sale and comment on how the price of wheat has gone up.
The camera very skillfully captures the stages of brick making, the chimneys where the bricks are baked, emitting smoke in the skies in the distance, the women cooking in their shanties barely covering the ceilings they seek shelter in and even the agent is discovered to be a financially deprived person. The rains lashing against everything around, with the kiln workers trying to shield themselves, visually spell out the tragic story of their lives.
By May 2022, the camera shows how Ramsakhi and Keshkali’s families finally leave the brick kiln site ten days after the day when they were scheduled to leave. While Ramsakhi’s family received its remuneration at the kiln site while leaving, Keshkali’s family got their dues a month after they had departed. By the time they left, Ramsakhi’s family had saved up to Rs.60,000, Keshkali’s family had saved up Rs.40,000 while Gaura’s family had saved a meager Rs.5000. The film ended when Gaura and her family were preparing to leave four months later in September 2022, but the film does not explain why they were leaving so late to get back to their original homes.
“We formed a genuine friendship with the three women in the first couple of schedules. Gaura, one of the women was slightly closer to our age. So, she and I just talked a lot about everything under the sun – from parents to relationships to clothes, food, everything! Geeta’s (my friend, scriptwriter and team member) presence in me becoming friends with the three women was also crucial as she knows Bundeli. Their comfort with us allowed us to film them as they went about with their everyday life,” Acharya sums up.
Shoma A. Chatterji is a freelance journalist, film scholar and author. She has authored 17 published titles and won the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema, twice. She won the UNFPA-Laadli Media Award, 2010 for ‘commitment to addressing and analysing gender issues’ among many awards.