‘THE CASTELESS COLLECTIVE- PROLOGUE: AN EPITOME OF MUSICAL DISSENT, AND CASTELESS POLITICS’ TO HIT THE 14th IDSFFK

News Desk

24 August 2022 01:20 PM

When the 19-member band of Chennai, ‘The Casteless Collective’ beat out the stages in Tamil Nadu, a ripple of clamor from thousands of spectators will light up the event. The Casteless Collective-Prologue directed by Monesh B gives life to the journey of this music band and documents the politics of music and the dialogue of caste. The documentary will be screened in the Competition long documentary category in the International Documentary and Short Film Festival which begins on 26th August at Thiruvananthapuram.

This revolutionary attempt in music was originally born out of a collaboration between the Tamil director Pa Ranjith’s Neelam Cultural center and the lead music composer of the band an indie artist, Tenma. The Casteless Collective has by now grabbed global attention with its raging voices and enticing music mostly against caste oppression. As with the larger aim of the troupe, their songs of dissent also take up all forms of social evils like marginalization of lower castes, manual scavenging, and discrimination based on color, caste, place and food culture. The music of The Casteless Collective also gives voice to the LGBTQ2+ community in addition to addressing the issues of honor killings, oppressions faced by the Dalit women and so on.

Monesh B, an associate director of Pa Ranjith who was entrusted with the task of documenting The Casteless Collective has lived through and travelled across the lives and thoughts of these members who are mostly from Chennai, Mumbai and Dharavi. The documentary that enlivens the politics of this music movement proves that rock and roll, jazz, folk, Gaana and Classical music can, and should, live together.

Following the traditional and indigenous musical culture of Tamil Nadu, the band also pronounces an attempt to regain the lost forms of Gaana and Parai music which are conventionally considered–less worthy, low-standard musical forms. However, as the powerful words recreate the rhythms of the old music from percussionist beats of melody and harmony and blend the performance with Western artefacts, their concerts equally drive thousands of music lovers, victims of these oppressions and the larger public unified for a just world. Gaana music, a form of eulogy sung during funerals is now reborn in the music of The Casteless Collective striking the death knell of caste and oppression.

The listeners of their music can easily associate with the deliberate choice of certain words, presenting the subtle discourses of caste discrimination and satirizing the contemporary political fallacies and state oppressions. The words, as well as the acoustics thus give out a larger picture of such experiences from around as well as within the lives of the artists themselves who have been ostracized from the mainstream music industry for their caste and the place they come from.