ABSTRACT
The national award-winning Kannada film Chomana Dudi presents the relevance of the dreams and desires of a Holeya, a landless bonded labourer who belongs to the Mari caste and thus is an Untouchable. The chapter situates the film within the larger socio-political debates going on in the society on the issue of caste at the time of its release and undertakes a study where specific instances that underline the issue of caste on screen such as strict caste barriers, economic and social marginalisation, sexual assault, conversion, and self-immolation of the protagonist are presented through efficient employment of film language instead of merely relying on dialogues. The chapter also explores how the film-maker has been able to recreate a life-world of Holeyas by lending his own subjective experiences to the cinematic text. The chapter further takes into account the location of the screenplay writer and the film-maker in terms of their caste, class, and gender in order to understand what governs their cinematic aesthetics while situating it within the debate of an insider/outsider. Towards the end, the chapter makes an attempt to understand the contemporary relevance of these ideas in Indian society today.
