Teacher-film maker documents modern heritage

CHANDIGARH: Till Indu Bala Singh, a lecturer in English at GCG, Sector 11, laid her hands on a book titled ''Remembering Preetnagar'', her mind, smitten with the idea of making a film, could not rest. "I wanted to make a film ever since I went to FTI, Pune, in 2003 for a film appreciation course. However, I didn''t know what the subject of my film ought to be.The moment I read about Preetnagar, I wanted to tell the whole world that such a utopian world existed right here, in Punjab," says Indu, who adds she is among those few who decide to pick a new skill well in their 40s.
She got enrolled for her doctoral thesis on cinematic representation of literary texts in 2001, then went to FTI to understand cinema in a larger perspective.
At FTI, her batchmates included Ashutosh Gowariker. Meeting the likes of Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Anoop Singh further added fire to her film making desire. Lack of experience in film making was not a hindrance, "I did a workshop with Peter Lee of BBC on documentary making, wrote the script, listed the people I wanted to interview and took the Handycam, and, there I was shooting the film," says Indu.
The story of Preetnagar is a story of a lost dream. The township was established by the publisher of Preetladi magazine, late Sardar Gurbaksh Singh, near Amritsar in 1938. This was to be the Shantiniketan of Punjab and it did become so, till Partition changed the landscape, geographical as well as otherwise, in 1947.
"All the renowned artists of the time lived there to pursue their creative skills; Nanak Singh, Sobha Singh, Balraj Sahni, Sahir Ludhianvi and Balwant Gargi, to name a few. Preetnagar also had an activity school where students were encouraged to pursue their creative skills. Old residents say that Amrita Preetam recited her first poem at Preetnagar," says Indu Bala.
Indu approached Doordarshan with her script, the national channel liked the idea of her story and she was asked to tell the story of this lost utopian dream in five episodes, which were telecast by DD National.
On June 9, on the foundation day of Roopnagar, Gurbaksh Singh and Nanak Singh Foundation will show this film in an auditorium at Roopnagar, where a government school is being run from the erstwhile activity school that produced a number of outstanding artists from Punjab.