India - Captured in Documentaries.

Renowned wildlife documentary filmmaker, Mike Pandey.

Wikipedia states documentary as "Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to documents some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record".

I have always been fascinated and being pulled by the documentaries especially having subjects based on India,our country. i find documentaries giving that kind of perspectives and viewpoint which we generally do not find out from news and magazines.                                     


Foreign Filmmakers have always been criticized for showing negative aspects of the country and keeping audience starved for positives. this may be true in some aspects but i generally wish to have views from all aspects and which is a step ahead of our nationalistic views.

You Tube is a great place for finding the documentaries as its the largest video-sharing platform available to us on the net. a few months back i came across the video channel of Journeyman Pictures. its a great channel available for those who wish to see great documentaries on diverse subjects and different geographies.over 150 thousand subscribers and over 267 Million hits as video views gives a credible testimony of this facts.

Still image of Journeyman pictures You tube page

I have compiled a list of documentaries on the subject "INDIA" which i am hereunder listing for your viewing. i hope you will like this effort. in the days to come i will also list the best documentaries from around the globe.
The listed documetries have been posted in the official Journey man pictures and i found these compeling enough to be posted here.


Life for little girls in many parts of India can be very difficult. But for 11 month-old twins, Stuti and Aradhana, who were born conjoined, the challenge to survive their poor background is enormous.

Surrendered by their parents and shunned by their village, life for conjoined twins Stuti and Aradhana looked almost certainly bleak. Their mother and father were poor farmers from a remote village and they decided the babies were best left with the staff of the hospital, who took them under their wing and mounted an nationwide fundraising campaign for surgery."They really didn't have a life if they continued to be conjoined," says Professor David Baines. Also calling in favours from colleagues around the world, the anaesthetist formed part of an operating team made up of 24 doctors and 40 nurses determined to save the girls.

The media swamp medical staff: the twins' story has captivated a nation of more than a billion people and put the spotlight on the way India treats baby girls. "In some parts of India families find girls to be a burden. They're not really looked upon as something that they want". With intimate, candid access to the marathon effort to separate Stuti and Aradhana, this is a breath-taking and emotional story.





J.S Parthibhan is a bank manager with a difference: he's interested in people, not numbers. Through micro loans, he helps villagers in rural areas develop a sense of entrepreneurship and self-respect.
Travelling on his moped to isolated villages, Parthibhan has made it his mission to bring his bank to the people, not the other way around. For him, reforming the system should happen at the most basic level: face to face. "It is about more than just dealing with money. It is dealing with people, with their aspirations."
These villagers need a loan for a new kiln. He educates them about money and talks them through the process of opening an account. "If I were a doctor I would care for the people coming to me the same way as I do now." In the past years, he's successfully backed countless similar ventures: "You can talk about financial crisis, but the importance is cultivating people. If you do that, everything falls in to the right place". Now here's a role model for bankers from Wall Street to Tokyo.





An Indian proverb says raising a daughter is like watering your neighbour's garden and the burden of having girls means many are killed at birth.

Twenty seven percent of Indians live below the poverty line and as a women, this economic status brings a life of enmity. A bride's parents must provide a dowry which often bankrupts the family. As a result female infanticide is a widespread tradition: "We accept the first girl, the second should be killed, then the third will be a son."

But now the women are fighting back by forming self-help groups which offer a range of programmes from skills training, to saving and loan schemes. It's all in the hope that through giving women a more constructive role in society more girls will be saved.
 




India's tribal Adivasi population are struggling for survival against the forces of economic growth. This devastating report examines the challenges they face, and the ways the tribes are rising to meet them.

Without caste or education, India's ancient tribes are at the mercy of mining companies, moneylenders, poverty and disease, suffering years of imprisonment and abuse at the hands of the Government. However, there are signs of hope; the Adivasi and Dalits are forming increasingly influential human rights groups. "A non-official school was opened here. We built up a group and saved money." Can they finally break out of years of oppression?




In a rural Indian village, four women make videos highlighting their margilisation in society. In so doing, they create a compelling film where the roles of director and subject merge. Raw and heartwarming.

As the women train the video cameras on themselves they're given a unique perspective on their own antiquated traditions. "Child marriage continues in our villages. The lives of many girls are sacrificed". In fact, early marriage is only the start of their problems, the catalyst to a broad array of other issues including abuse, sexual harassment and exclusion.

However, as well as highlighting the darker issues of their role in society, their video introspection also encourages catharsis within themselves. Confronting and directly discussing their darker traditions brings revelation and new understanding. "This video training has changed my life".






Whilst Baba Ramdev continues his hunger strike in protest against poverty and corruption in India, one passionate chef is on the streets putting all his culinary skill into feeding Maduari's dispossessed.

"It was a very powerful spark which I had", Narayanan says of the moment that changed his successful culinary career forever. From the moment he saw a homeless, elderly man eating his own waste because of his hunger, he knew that things had to change. "We are feeding people who've been left on the roadside for the last nine years, rain or shine. Diwali, Ramsar, Christmas...whatever it may be." 

 The gulf between the affluent classes and the poor is growing at a startling pace in India, but Narayanan has no intention of giving up his mission. "They want love, I can give them love. That's it".







November 1994 - A woman in a brightly coloured sari crawls through a field of goats and cows with her gun at the ready. She is from India's poorest caste - the 'untouchables' - who have long been at the bottom of the heap.

They are fighting back. Young 'untouchable' women are learning to kill. They are gaining self-respect and, most importantly, protection in a hostile world. Higher castes are also arming their people after repeated attacks. Villagers speak of terror campaigns. As India's ruling party faces crucial state polls the country's battle lines are being drawn not only by religion but caste.

Politicians can no longer afford to ignore the lower caste majority. This film examines the plight of the 'untouchables' and how they're helping themselves to an improved life





Mirra Alfassa or 'The Mother' founded the 'City of Dawn' in Viluppuram in 1968. Her work within the experimental township has promoted a harmonious lifestyle to all who live there.

The Auroville township in South India is now home to 2,000 people from all over the world. "I am on the verge of a new perception of life, as if certain parts of the consciousness were mutating from the caterpillar state to the butterfly state..." says Alfassa. The purpose was to realise human unity and it is today recognised as the first and only internationally endorsed experiment that is still ongoing in this field.




In Uttar Pradesh, one of the poorest and most feudal areas of India, there is a long history of patriarchy, abuse and corruption. Now, an aggressive and outspoken gang of women are fighting the system.

Sampat Pal is the leader of the Gulabi, or 'Pink', Gang. This feisty crusader is making headlines with her vigilante tactics; when she isnt attacking police, she is teaching women how to wield the 'lathi' - a long, wooden staff - to protect themselves against domestic violence. With over 40,000 members, the Gulabi Gang has quickly become a mass movement.

Why do we have to take the law in our hands? I'll tell you. The government doesn't obey its own laws. They're making fools of everyone. The gang are on a mission to ensure that those born into the lowest caste have an education, avoid child marriages, and earn a decent wage. Mahatma Gandhi famously preached non-violence. Sampat Pal says times have changed. I salute Gandhi. He was the father of our nation. But my style is different.





Since 2001 all Indian primary schools have provided pupils with a free midday meal. Seven years on truancy rates have been slashed, and child health is soaring. Western governments are taking note.

"Compared to ours, today's generation is better off," explains a cook at one school we visited. Vijay Bhaskar agrees, he is the food administrator in Karnataka, and reveals, "the number of children out of school has reduced from 1 million to 70,000."

The scheme has also seen off the junk food industry, as Bhaskar comments, "any person who has seen children eating a hot meal knows that no cookie can substitute."








Their skull trophies may have been replaced with papier mache replicas, but the head-hunters of Nagaland havent let go of ancient customs. Disillusioned and nostalgic, they cling to their traditions.
The modern world came to the Naga people a long time ago, and yet it has offered them few benefits. Outside the missionary church, the Naga defiantly re-live former glories of war in elaborate reconstructions. With the government far away in Delhi and the future marred by struggling industries, even the young Naga lament: "we once had total freedom. These days, its bad.




The glaciers covering the Himalayas are melting much faster than anywhere else on Earth. If the current trend continues, they will lose 80% of their mass in the next 25 years.
The rapid pace of the melt is homemade: the smog of wood fires and exhaust fumes.

This brown cloud warms the high mountains at a far stronger pace than the earth does. In the past a thick blanket of snow covered these mountains." The major Himalayan countries have good prospects in the fight against this threat if they agree quickly on a common strategy. When the glaciers are gone, there will be no water here."



Located in the heart of Mumbai, the Dharavi slum is like a city within the city. Now ambitious plans for redevelopment mean its days are numbered.


Home to one million residents, Dharavi is a hive of activity providing Mumbai with an essential recycling service. However, the slum will soon give way to brand-new apartments. Developers claim everyone will be re-housed into better accommodation, but unfair rules mean most families won't be able to benefit from the change.

 Driven out of their homes, they will lose everything. As one mother puts it: "We will stay here until they demolish, then we're in the hands of God."








 Image source :- http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/11/23/qa-the-death-of-the-indian-documentary-film