Behind the Tin Sheets - film on the people working on the metro in Bangalore

From Maps4change

=== Behind the tin sheets ===

By Yashu

Behind the tin sheets is an ethnographic exploration about the people who are working on the Metro Construction sites in Bangalore. The film will be an unusual combination of stories ranging from love stories to ghost stories, stories about superstition to stories about politicians, romance of the village to fascination of the cities, loyalties to Lalu Prasad Yadav vis-a-vi jokes about Rahul Gandhi.... It’s going to be a rendition of stories that allows one to look at construction workers as not just mere worker employed to construct a new-Bangalore or the one without any rights but to allow them to present themselves as people with feelings and philosophies.

MAPS

Most of these people are footloose migrants moving from one project to another... from a Dam construction to a fly-over to the Metro. We thought we could use the participatory mapping techniques to gauge the migration trajectories and to get an insight into their spatial understanding. The process led to some interesting revelations, for example: Murtaz Ali from Bihar drew his version of an Indian Map and proudly placed Bihar at the centre of it. He went westwards from his house to work on the highways of Assam and Nagaland- hence placed the two states on the west of the Indian map. There were several other such markings done on his Indian Map which completely questioned the notions of Map and the need for it to be accurate. After collecting 12 maps and attending 2 maps for change workshop...I am pondering on some questions and thoughts...

 The notions of space.
 The imagination of spaces.
 The depth and insight that one can get with regards to their lives and livelihood through the maps drawn out by them is unbelievable. 
 These maps in opposition to a political map will give one an idea as to how irrelevant maps could be in this situation.
 The workshop also helped me understand that the maps that I have need not be converted into a digital map but can represented the way they are to allow people   
 to see the simplicity of it at some level...
 Does one need a map in this situation to represent them? May be other tools or cinema in itself will allow for understanding one’s mental maps...
 Can an oral expression of one’s home/village/city still communicate an idea of a map?
 Can the hand drawn maps alone help one get closer to the concerns of the people in this situation?

For the next workshop

I want to be able to collect more maps from the Labour camp where we are making the film and represent these maps as an instillation to the group and get responses.

More information about the film can be accessed on the website of 'Behind the Tin Sheets' - please click here.