It was a happy afternoon on March 8, 1988, in Mehsampur, a village of Punjab. The village was eagerly waiting for the star Punjabi singer-duo Chamkila and Amarjot who were supposed to perform that evening. But they did not turn up. At 2pm Chamkila and his crew were attacked by a gang of unknown youths. Chamkila and Amarjot were killed.
Amar Singh Chamkila's murder remains a mystery to date, and so does his music which equally loved and hated by millions.
Kabir Chowdhary, an anthropologist-turned filmmaker directed the film ‘Mehsampur’. He explains how Mehsampur started, “I was researching for a film 'Laalpari' with my partner Akshay Singh. The entire music scene started from Ludhiana. Through that process, we figured that lot of other filmmakers have already attempted to make a film on Chamkila. We were kind of disappointed that we were not the first people to explore this concept. Because of that disappointment, I think, Mehsampur came about."
Source: Sydney Film Festival
Amar Singh Chamkila was a controversial musician. He was accused by some of writing ‘dirty lyrics’. He was very popular among a section of music lovers but was criticised by others. Chowdhary, however, believes that Chamkila’s music had many other aspects too.
He says, “There is a certain confusion that he was singing dirty songs. Chamkila was speaking about the truth of the time. It is very easy to miscomprehend his lyrics. He was talking about what was happening around that time in Punjab. The so-called machismo and masculinity, the drug problem, and the separatism were the issues he touched in his songs. And people loved it as the other singers were still singing the same old love stories. People associated with Chamkila’s lyrics.”
Mehsampur is a different film in many senses. It is a film about a musician, but none of his original work has been used in the movie.
Amar Singh Chamkila performing with his wife and stag partner Amarjot Kaur Source: Facebook
“I am an independent filmmaker. We have made this film by a lot of begging and borrowing from the people we know. Music rights are really expensive. Getting the music would have been some crazy times. So I could not use any of Chamkila’s songs in my film,” says Chowdhary who has made sure that Chamkila has a very strong presence in the film.
Another exciting thing about the film is that it attempts to juggle between the genres of documentary and fiction. Chowdhary says, “We were creating a fictional piece called Laalpari. What upset me was that there were filmmakers who were already making similar films. And we had met all these people connected to Chamkila. There is this musician in the film by the name of Lalchand. He used to play Dholak. He was also part of Chamkila’s crew. He was shot too. He is the only person who survived. So instead of casting actors to play the characters, we decided to make a film using real persons playing them.”
This made the job difficult for Chowdhary as a director for working with non-actors was challenging. However, not just that he has finished the film; it is receiving accolades too. ‘Mehsampur’ will be screened at Sydney Film Festival this month.
