DVD of this Film is available at
Phantom of a fertile land
Phantom of a fertile land is Tushar Waghela's latest short film
in which he introduces us with the intolerable pain of the farmers. He states that the
government and the industries are acquiring the farmers fertile land in the name of
development and are pushing the farmers life and occupation to the end! And if we note
carefully, we will see the deep darkness behind the bright shining journey of so called
development , in which the farmer do get the cost of his land but he losses his identity,
Parental property, heritage and the hereditary occupation.
On the other hand is land Mafia, for whom it has become an attractive business, to bye thousands of acres fertile land at very low price from the poor farmers and sell it to the rich industrialists at very high cost. It is also becoming an investment business for many such people. Farmers either under threatening of the mafia or at times the greed of instant money to fulfill the present requirements are selling their land but along with it they are loosing their identity, name and the relation they had with their ancestors through land from generations after generations.
The one who have breathed in the aromatic fresh breeze of wheat fields, whose mother had seeded the ground while tying him on her back, the one who had celebrated the festivals by seeing the green fresh crop while sitting on his fathers shoulders, for whom the bell of bullocks were his toys, how can he live away from his farms! If the day to day aroused problems in agriculture forces a farmer to sell his land, if he
finds suicide the only solution for his problems, is the only solution to him is sell his land ?
Isn't it strange that the one who arranges grain for millions of people of our country, instead of solving his agricultural related problems , we are forcing them to sell their land, to leave their profession. Is this the duty of our government that instead of giving proper solution, they are keeping the farmers away from their farms so that even the next generations cannot do farming !And by the end, when the effect of this will reach to us, to whom will we think is responsible? Either to the farmer who sold his land or to the people who praise the industries whose smoke is converting the fertile land into barren land, which is pushing the farmers to the never ending darkness of the future at the cost of the basic requirements of filling the stomach.
In his film Tushar Waghela has shown the unbearable pain of the broken farmer due to the attachment he has for his land and the sound and environment pollution by the machinery. Through his video art he had expressed that the suicide or the selling of land is not just an accident. It is a pity.
