Gallan Hoyian Beetiyan

1966 117’ b&w Dogri d/sc Kumar Kuldip pc Tawi Films st Narendra Khajuria’s play Pyasi Dharti dial Ramnath Shastri lyr Yash Sharma, Kehari Singh ‘Madhukar’ lp Ram Kumar Abrol, Jitender Sharma, Kaberi, Veena Kotwal

The only film made to date in the language of the Dogra community, which comprises c.25% of the Kashmiri people. Made mainly on the initiative of several well-known Dogri writers, the melodrama revolves around the problems of intermarriage between two villages and of water scarcity in the Kandli area of Duggar. A canal is dug between two villages when the marriages of a village chieftain’s brother and sister are arranged with their counterparts from the other community. The sister Shano’s marriage takes place, but when her brother dies, negotiations over the water-sharing agreement break down. Trying to resolve the resulting drought Shano is killed and, in the dramatic finale, her dead body reaches her marital home at the same time as the water from the reopened canal. The film is best- known for evoking Khajuria’s realist idiom.

Film