by NANDINI RAMNATH
Jayan Cherian’s ‘Rhythm of Dammam’ was premiered at the International Film Festival of India.
Jayan Cherian’s Rhythm of Dammam has several firsts to its credit. It’s the first fictional feature to be set among the Indian Siddi community that traces its ancestry to Africa and the first in the Siddi Konkani dialect spoken by the section of the community that lives in northern Karnataka. Many members of cast have never acted before, let alone have their history, cultural practices and contemporary concerns explored in fiction.
Cherian’s exploration of the marginalised group revolves around 12-year-old Jayaram, who lives in Yellapur in Karnataka. After the death of Jayaram’s grandfather, a spat breaks out in his family about supposedly buried treasure. Jayaram is plagued by visions of his grandfather, which lead him to discover his community’s journey to India centuries ago through maritime trade routes, its historic enslavement and its continued oppression by upper-caste landowners.
After being premiered at the International Film Festival of India (November 20-28), Rhythm of Dammam will be shown at the International Film Festival of Kerala (December 13-20) in the International Competition section.
The movie’s title refers to the community dance called “dammam”, accompanied by intense percussion, which is performed at important rituals and festivities.
Dammam and other cultural forms “articulate and unite the aspirations and common identities of African Indians, a people who gather as a result of their particular and varied history as a displaced people and to elaborate on their culture and transmit some of its practices to the next generation”, American academic Pashington Obeng notes in his contribution to the anthology Sidis and Scholars – Essays on African Indians, edited by Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy and Edward A Alpers (2004).
Rhythm of Dammam has two extended sequences of the Siddis warming up to folk songs and then dissolving into an energetic whirl of limbs and feet. “When the dance begins, it’s like a frenzy, so you can’t shoot it through traditional methods,” Cherian explained. Rather than staging the dance in a choreographed manner, Cherian followed the entire set of rituals that precedes such occasions. The dances flowed organically, with the Siddis working themselves up into the mood rather than dancing on cue, he explained.
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