Sudesh Babu’s short film ‘Saakshatkaaram’ to be screened at MIFF

Saakshatkaaram highlights how emotions are universal and humanity is one family

Saakshatkaaram, a 15-minute film directed by Sudesh Balan, sensitively focusses on the universality of emotions while dreaming of the earth sans boundaries, man-made or geographical.

A faculty member at IDC School of Design IIT Bombay, the architect-turned-academic and filmmaker says the ‘overview effect’ experienced by astronauts inspired him to make Saakshatkaaram.

“Seeing the tiny, blue speck, the earth, from outer space, creates a cognitive shift, a change in sensory perceptions among astronauts. This feeling, known as overview effect, emphasises how boundaries are petty when one realises that this little speck is all we have to survive and thrive. It is humanity that matters.”

If it was a voyage to space which instilled that feeling of oneness in them, the same can be achieved through yoga and meditation through an internal transformation, Sudesh says. “I was inspired by the overview effect and wanted to make a film on that.”

Sudesh drives home the point with a story of an elderly man who loses his wife in an accident. Her hands are donated to a woman from another country who had lost hers in a bomb explosion. Before she leaves for her home, the woman and her husband express a desire to meet the good Samaritan who helped them.

The meeting between the husband and the woman’s family is suffused with emotions but never once does it become maudlin or melodramatic. “I interacted with grieving relatives who had donated the organs of their loved ones, and with recipients. I felt that hands, for instance that of a mother, would evoke so many memories and sentiments in a child. The hands would have fed, carried, comforted and hugged. I would be able to recognise my mother’s or wife’s hands anywhere. It must be difficult to see those familiar hands on a stranger.”

Sudesh believes that unlike internal organs, hands have a unique identity. He visited a limb rehabilitation centre in Kerala to understand how doctors and physio-therapists help patients with transplanted limbs.