From the Editors Desk

WHR Janury 2016

From the Editors' Desk : haiku film

I have long believed that presenting haiku in a film/movie would probably help solve a particular problem inherent in haiga using photographs. That particular problem is this: If a haiku is edited within a photograph, more often than not it would interfere with what is often a beautiful, stunning or dramatic photograph which should really be viewed on its own, or appreciated in its own right. And vice versa. This runs counter to the very essence of good haiga which should be a harmonious marriage between haiku and an image, enhancing each other and not interfering with each other. (If haiku is edited outside the photograph it would again infringe upon the iron rule that haiku and the image should be on the same format. Life is difficult, isn't it?)

Now we have a proof. Our Deputy-Editor-In-Chief, Kala Ramesh, has produced an evocative short film, introducing excellent haiku within the context of changing landscape and against the background of moving scenes. This way, the haiku poems would cease to be disruptive of the image and transport the viewer to walk, or fly with them to enjoy the atmosphere which they are evoking. It is a very satisfying experience. The format should be exploited more and more and shared with wider circle of people. Perhaps it should be given a proper name, such as "haiga film" or "film haiga", as it may well be developed as an independent genre.

Each haiku presented in this film was actually written down with paint on the city walls of Pune, which is also a highlight of the film. It has never been done before. By having haiku painted on city walls and everyday spaces it is expected that haiku would become so much closer to people and even an integral part of the culture of the city.

Susumu Takiguchi

You can find the beautiful film HERE

HaikuWALL India

--an attempt to bring haiku into everyday spaces

A note on the film by Kala Ramesh

Art, in any form, is about interaction and participation. Art without an audience is just half the circle. As writers of haiku we are familiar with this truth. When art moves into museums, libraries, hardbound books and the internet, which are not places that everyone visits, art becomes inaccessible, exclusive and just for the educated and the rich, instead of being inclusive and for everyone. This is most striking with poetry, which is thought to be the first form in which we humans shared our stories. Two great epic poems – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata--have inspired Indians for generations.

If art does not become a conversation with the people from whom it is born, then what is the purpose of its existence? As Yusef Komunyakaa has rightly said, “the crime in all of this is that poetry, which can be transformative, belongs to everyone. Poetry is an action, and this is a fact I keep in mind.”

One way of making poetry into action is through graffiti. While graffiti is frowned upon and considered illegal by the rest of the world, in India it gets the support of the property owners and in some places even of the government. It is not so much rebellious as reflective.

Merging haiku with graffiti was something that evolved most organically in my mind during the Pune Biennale 2013 and 2015 Festivals. The organisers of Pune Biennale were so pleased with the haiku that architecture students wrote during the workshop that they decided to paint them on city walls, after securing permission from our local government. The idea behind this was that we should leave art and poetry to be discovered as a chance happening. Maybe a person walking down the road suddenly finds a haiku and says, "Hey! That's beautiful".

With this idea of ‘haiku as a chance happening’ I started off with the cities of Chennai and Bengaluru. I was lucky to get Poornima Sukumar, a well known graffiti artist, to agree to paint two haiku on Bengaluru city walls. That was a big break and her graffiti are in the film. Poornima told me that she “called” her friends on Face Book! It became a Sunday morning activity for parents, grandparents and children to try their hand at painting a wall.

The haiku on the walls was an idea that began to occupy all of my dreaming space. Every wall I saw I imagined a haiku there! But to document this into a film was never my idea. It was Jim Kacian who first suggested that this idea should be shared and that it would be good if I could make 17 films of 17 seconds for The Haiku Foundation’s 2015 Poetry Day. But, I could never get it done by April, 2015.

I began my search for someone who could put this idea into a film —I tried 8 different film makers, amateurs and students of the famed Television and Film Institute of India, and spent almost 11 months over this, but it just didn’t happen. Recently, a friend of mine suggested Payal Kulkarni – a 20-year-old commerce graduate. She brought along her cinematographer, Kaustubh Joshi, and before my eyes, it started to take shape, shot by shot. . . haiku by haiku.