Director Notes:In Search of the Riyal - KESANG tseten

The subject of migration, of Nepali workers going abroad, is important and vast, and so are the possibilities for making a film about the subject. For more than a decade, almost everyone who is poor, not properly educated, and unable to find gainful employment wants to go to bidesh, or has been there, or has returned.  Would-be migrants are everywhere; talk to any taxi driver, waiter, your maid, and so on, to the extent that migrating to go to work  has become a cultural ‘vernacular’ for a huge segment of the underclass.  In fact, the better-off people are trying for DV visas, employment in the UK, studies abroad, and so on, but my interest was the common worker.

There is this huge tidal wave of a movement outward, of maybe 2.5 million in Malaysia, and the Gulf  – because of the lure or promise of securing a better life. For the poor, there is a desperation, . People take huge loans at interest rates of 24 to 60 %; they essentially take a gamble.   Obviously, it is a story about poverty; but poverty comes in various colorations, and so, the story about migrant workers is a story illuminating Nepali reality.

As far as making such a film goes, the problem is not that there are no stories but maybe that there are too many stories. Because stringing a bunch of individual stories or cases doesn’t necessarily make up a film, just as a collection of anecdotes or examples won’t fill up a book. Also, though the subject is important, it is also sociological, i.e it is about many people in a certain condition because of common identifiable factors. So the challenge is, how to make it work cinematically, as it’s harder to embody a story in a group or a class; easier if you have a character or a few characters.  How to make specific the general situation.

Given the vastness or the ‘generality’ of the subject, there could be no script.  The approach had to be to cast as wide a net as possible, to try to find threads, then see which threads lead somewhere.

At the end of 15 months, I had 180 hours of footage, shot in Nepal, in the UAE, and Kuwait: stories about the young men, without a high school pass and from marginal communities,  who undergo a basic training in construction scaffolding to go abroad; after waiting for months and months, a few of them finally do go. Because these guys had to wait for long time before their jobs and visas worked out, I was nervous I wouldn’t have enough material. What if the young guys never went? What if I couldn’t meet them in the Gulf? What if I didn’t get a visa to go to the Gulf to ‘follow’ them.  There were numerous uncertainties. So I began filming women migrant stories.

I had heard about Pourakhi, an NGO made up entirely of women migrant returnees that did advocacy for women migrants’ issues. When I walked into their office the first time, the main Paurokhi women – Manju Gurung and Bijaya Rai Shrestha  - were caught up in the case of the Sherpa woman sentenced to death in Kuwait for having allegedly killed a Filipino domestic co-worker …This was as good a point to start as any, and so I  began filming  that.

Then there was Dalbir, who I’d met on my research trip to Dubai. He’d been a security guard there for 10 years, with a good salary. He wrote ghazals and articles about migrant workers. When his father died, Dalbir had asked to go home, but his employers refused, so he’d resigned and returned to Nepal. I visited his home in Ramechap. After several months, Dalbir found he had no option but to go abroad for work.   It was the story of the migrant, ill-fitted for work here, ill-paid if he did land a job, and thus with no choice but to go abroad again.  There was a chance to go to Macao, and he was taking it. I’d been filming Dalbir, but now he was going away to Macao. This was a thread that was not going anywhere – as I’d decided to confine my film to the Gulf.

But Dalbir had bad luck; he got swindled by his broker, and he returned.  This was bad for him, but ‘good’ for my film, if I am honest. His story now had a chance to be useful.

So this was how it went; I loved the process of finding the film; filming as research. Having no script, finding the story.  When I began editing I soon realized the film I had had in mind, with several parts, men’s and women’s stories, characters popping up in different sections, was all too much to shape into any coherence. Even if I could, it would be far too long, with a little of everything but not enough of any one thing.  I ended up thinking I’d have to make more than one film, with the material I had.  It was good stuff; especially, since it is difficult to get into the Gulf to film; we had foregone permission to film as I was sure I wouldn’t have gotten permission.   They are far too sensitive with scrutiny to labour issues and can come down harshly on any intent to damage their image.  It was ok to film in this way, but we had to handycams a tourist might carry, as cover, though the small cameras were HDV.

With editing going on simultaneously over 8-9 months, I slowly to came to see that the best way to use the material was to make three separate films,  the first was  In Search of the Riyal.   It is about people going, about people in the Gulf, and about return.  It might be a little slow going for some, but sometimes nothing can substitute for a sense of time or vastness than time…but I think there is movement, a kind of an architecture, even a kind of an arc.

The second film, about the family and emotional fallout of migrant situation, is about domestic workers going to Kuwait, thru the narrative of Dolma Sherpa, the woman sentenced to death for the alleged murder of a co-domestic worker.  The third will be entirely about Qatar, which could stand for Saudi, the UAE, Kuwait, or any of countries Nepali workers go to.  The Nepali diaspora in Qatar is particularly fascinating because it is a small country with 3 to 4 lakh Nepalis, which is about the size of the Qatari population.  Everywhere you go there are Nepalis, in hotels, restaurants, gas stations, in camel camps in the desert….I remember thinking, ‘This place is colonized by Nepalis, but from the bottom up.’

The process of making the films affirmed the challenge and thrill of documentary filmmaking. As you film, you begin to feel the ‘story’; the finding is complete during the edit.  You’re sure to get plenty of footage, uninflected shots, that can come to life in the larger design of the story.

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Published with very special support from the director.

In Search of The Riyal is making its Nepal premiere screening on the 19th Sept. 2009 at the Film South Asia '09 scheduled at Kumari Cinema