Making a musical difference

The movie ‘The Casteless Collective - Prologue’ admirably explains the backdrop and working of the increasingly popular Tamil indie band

By Anish Pathiyil

Multiple streams have emerged in the contemporary world, through which the current generation of politically-motivated citizens voice out their opinion. The movie ‘The Casteless Collective-Prologue’, directed by Monesh B, takes us through the lives of one such band who use the medium of tamil gaana music to voice out their dissent against oppressors and their views against the establishment. The movie was screened as part of the Travelling Film South Asia 2022 at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai on Saturday.

The Casteless Collective was an initiative started by director Pa Ranjith and music composer Tenma to give gaana musicians in the state a platform to showcase their ideas and their skill. The name was derived from the usage Jathi Iladha Thamizhargal (Casteless Tamilians) which was a term coined by the 19th century anti-caste activist Iyothee Thass. The gaana was considered to be a taboo due to its origination in funerals. The format uses Madras Bashai which is a local dialect of Tamil spoken mainly in the northern regions of Chennai.

The film begins with the introduction of Pa Ranjith as he explains the reasoning behind creating such a band and the idea behind bringing gaana culture into the mainstream space as a medium of voicing out the problems they face. The movie travels through the lives of all the band members one after the other, interspersed with Tenba explaining their specialities as singers or musicians and the artists themselves shedding light on the issues they had to face as members of the society and what pushed them into letting out their political voices in the form of music.

The movie contains multiple songs composed and sung by the band on issues like discrimination, caste-based marginalisation, manual scavenging and LGBTQ+ issues. The film details how the songs are not only in the gaana framework but a coherent fusion between other forms of music like rock and roll, jazz, rap and classical. The songs contain a mix of traditional tamil dhols and parais along with the western percussion instruments. Artists like Arivu, Isaivani and Balachander have already managed to carve a niche for themselves in the Tamil music industry, but continue to be an essential part of the collective.

The movie, though thoroughly entertaining with its wittily written songs and the continuous alluring sounds of the Tamil percussion instruments, seems to be a little too long with repetitive ideas presented by most of the speakers. The camera work throughout the film was good capturing the true essence of vadachennai (North Chennai) and its public. The film provides a great account of the group and what they stand for and will be a great lesson for other political bands and indie musicians looking to make it big in the industry.