Black Waters/ Kaala Paani
ALKA RAGHURAM
Alka Raghuram went to the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the summer of 2005, six months after the Tsunami. Black Waters is the documentary memoir of that trip. The word “Empathy” has two meaning: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another, and, the imaginative ascribing to an object, feelings or attitudes present in oneself. As a storyteller one constantly negotiates the balance between empathy and distance. When she first started talking to the people of Andaman and Nicobar, her overwhelming feeling was that of voyeuristic guilt. Scavenging for misery, here was Alka, a stranger, trying to gain insights into their deepest experiences. Over a period of time there was a shift in the dynamic; people sought her out to talk about their experiences. The camera was not always an intrusive presence, rather a device to document their stories. Encountering nature’s fury at such close quarters gives a heightened awareness of one’s own mortality and helplessness. Preserving the stories is a defense against being forgotten.