Candles In The Wind

‘Candles in the wind’ is the sequel to ‘Cotton for my shroud’, telling the story of the farm widows of the Green Revolution. After the suicide of the farmer, what becomes of the loan, and of the land itself…

While Cotton was located in Maharashtra, we chose to investigate the situation of the widows in Punjab. There are tens of thousands of farm widows, sometimes two to three in the same family.

This punctures the propaganda that farm distress is in localised pockets. It also blows away Bollywood’s cliche image of Punjab as the land of perennially affluent farming communities singing and dancing in garish attire.

The film is an interplay of poetry, poignant visuals and intimate stories of five strong women.
Where men find an escape in death, the widows who bear the burden of their debt, do not have easy escapes. We witness how they take care of children, ageing parents and the chemically-abused fields – while repaying the debt.

Today, with their backs to the wall, these women farmers fight the State and the almighty Corporations.

‘Candles in the wind’ witnesses the silent march of these women as they re-negotiate the rules of engagement and the politics of domination in their bid to survive. Their struggle gives us a window into the social-economic flux in rural India.

The strategies of survival and re-negotiation of spaces lends itself to a nuanced understanding of the silent under-currents of a gender-specific struggle in the larger narrative of surviving as a farmer in these times.

The film is a poignant portrayal of these farm-widows, with minimalist narration and a cinematic interplay of image and soundscapes.

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