Short transmission | In Teen Adhyay, the flight of birds provides a contemplative approach to the pandemic

In the last three years following the pandemic, not many filmmakers have reimagined its impact on human life – all the silence, the rupture, the devastation and the renewal – in a way that does justice to the scale of its effect on human life. . and the human psyche. So far, the prism has been the hopelessness of civic and government systems, and the devastating effect it had on relationships and connections. In India, Anubhav Sinha Bheed (2023) is the only film that comes close to a solid reinvention of the entirety of its impact.

Subash Sahoo’s Teen Adhyay is a calm, exploratory and philosophical documentary about the pandemic. During its duration of approximately half an hour, the camera explores what fear and isolation made us overlook: the continuity of the cycle of life. Sahoo, a renowned sound designer and sync sound engineer in the Mumbai film industry with credits in over 300 films, documented an intimate detail of life unfolding outside the window of his Mumbai home during the lockdown: a crow building a nest, laying eggs, the eggs mature to hatch and the new bird in flight. Filmed between 2020 and 2022, during the first and second waves of the pandemic, the film has no dialogue and features traveling, atmospheric shots of Mumbai and its adjacent rural areas shrouded in silence and stasis. The only human actor is Sahoo’s son, who appears just as he was during the pandemic years: a budding athlete who retreated into himself after isolation.

Teen Adhyay It has three chapters: Vipatti (Calamity), Utpatti (Germination) and Chakra (Continuity). “In essence, that’s what ancient Hindu philosophy would qualify as existence,” Sahoo says. Each chapter has its distinctive Indian classical soundtrack: a rendition of Ghulam Ali Khan’s Megh Malhar and original compositions by Vibhuti Gadnayak, a music composer from Sahoo’s home state of Odisha. The natural world, the human world and the world of objects intersect in this poetic film that is an evocation of a moment in human history: through the lens of Sahoo, the silence and lack of movement in human spaces They clearly accentuate the birth and flights of birds. . Sahoo almost glorifies the movements and fluidity of the natural world, as if we have time to contemplate it. The film’s editing by Suvir Nath (who is also the film’s co-producer), Sahoo’s long-time collaborator, complements the languid yet emphatic pace of Teen Adhyay.

Sahoo remembers how the film was made. “At first, like the rest of the world, my son and I were also gripped by fear. We began to observe a crow nesting on our balcony. With my Canon 5D Mark 3, I started filming it and got my son involved too. “Then it started to gain momentum when I started planning it as a film with Suvir.” Nath, who accompanied Sahoo on shoots around the ghostly city and its rural outskirts, says that at a time when anxiety levels were at their highest, shooting the film was almost like therapy. “We were trying to give meaning to life while making this film,” Nath added. The team, mainly consisting of two members, is in the process of submitting the film to various film festivals around the world.

Sahoo is from Kendrapara, Odisha, where he grew up participating in local plays. After earning a bachelor’s degree in sound design from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Pune in the early 2000s, he came to Mumbai in 2006 hoping to become an actor but ended up becoming a designer. of great success sound. His directorial attempts were unsuccessful until the documentary The Sound Man Mangesh Desai (2017), about the legendary and pioneering sound engineer, received much praise. Sahoo is currently putting the finishing touches Mo Bou, Mo Gaan (My Mother, My Town), a personal documentary about his mother set in his ancestral town.

Sahoo, with almost 20 years in Bollywood, now shoots his own films when he has a break from his professional work as a sound designer. “When I have extra money, I shoot. For me, filmmaking is a luxury, it is very personal,” says Sahoo.

Teen Adhyay It has all the makings of a passion project: a unique, oblique way of looking at a world-changing event that the world is quick to forget.

Short Stream is a monthly curated section, where we feature an Indian film that hasn’t been seen before or hasn’t been seen much before, but is creating a buzz in the film industry and film festival circles. We streamed the film for a month on HT Premium, the subscription-only section of hindustantimes.com.

Sanjukta Sharma is a writer and film critic based in Mumbai. Write to him at [email protected]