A song from Divya Bharathi's documentary Orutharum Varela, which is about the Ockhi cyclone and its devastating effect, released on Monday. Set to music by Natarajan Sankaran, it has been sung by Resmi Sateesh and has lyrics by R Thanikodi.
This is the second documentary film that Divya has made after Kakkoos, which was on manual scavenging. Orutharum Varela looks at how the government allegedly mismanaged the situation, resulting in the death of several fishermen.
Speaking to TNM, Divya Bharathi had said that the documentary would expose the government's "total failure."
The song has visuals of family members, mostly women and children, lamenting the deaths at sea and praying for the souls of the departed. The video also has disturbing visuals of decomposed bodies of fishermen that were brought to shore after several days. The song indicts the government for not doing enough to save the fishermen. Lyrics like "In this land of sinners, why do we have a navy? Is it to devour people like us?" establish the simmering anger in the fisher community. The video has a shot of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the accompanying lines ask why we have radars and satellites, and if it's only to call Death sooner.
It also takes on BJP leaders like Modi and H Raja for their alleged indifference towards those who died.
From the time news of Divya's documentary began doing the rounds, she has alleged that she was being targeted. In July, several cops had descended in the activist-filmmaker's house and she applied for anticipatory bail. Divya had also questioned the government's plan to build an expressway from Salem to Chennai.
In August, Divya, who was on conditional bail after a complaint was filed against her documentary, was interrogated for two hours about Orutharum Varela.
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