The Silenced Sirens: The tale of mills, malls, a taxi driver and a 16-year-old school student

It’s not a big deal, says the unassuming, bespectacled 16-year-old girl with a slightly freckled face. “I was bored and I was sitting on this idea for a while now. It only made sense to pursue it.”

Meet Siya Chandrie, an over-achiever who recently won an award under the Little Directors category at the 19th International Children Film Festival of India (ICFFI). Siya, in a 12-minute documentary, The Silenced Sirens, tells the story of the forgotten and dilapidated tale of Bombay mills with the help of a 76-year-old taxi driver Pandeyji.

Siya was born way after the mills were gone, when they were replaced by swanky malls and skyscrapers. “Pandeyji couldn’t stop reminiscing about those days. I have heard so many stories of those days, a few very scary and gory but most of the stories were about how Bombay used to be.” The film was initially supposed to be more than just the mills but “Pandeyji’s interest in the mills made me concentrate on it,” says Siya.

The Great Bombay Textile Strike was called on 18 January 1982 and more than 2,50,000 mill workers went on strike demanding increased bonus, wages and a better living standard. How did a 16-year-old from Dhirubhai Ambani International School decide to chose a subject so grave for a holiday project?

Pandeyji, came to Mumbai, then Bombay, from UP when he was 16. After a doing a few odd jobs, Pandeyji has been a taxi driver for the most of his life. “You can say for 50 years the man drove taxis and most of his insight is from that time,” says Priya Srinivasan, Siya’s mother. Priya also organises Pomegranate workshop where Siya worked her project under her mentor Batul Mukhtiyar, who is also an acclaimed filmmaker.

Pandeyji is now a driver for Siya’s family and that’s how the 16-year-old got the idea. “He is like a family member and he used to randomly tell me a lot of stories and they were all so fascinating.”

As a 16-year-old, Siya was born in Mumbai when the mills had become malls and there was probably very little remnant of the Bombay which Pandeyji knew. “Ye Jupiter Mill hua karti thi.. kuch samajh rahi ho? (This used to be Jupiter Mill. Do you understand?)” asks Pandeyji to Siya in the documentary.

The 12-minute documentary, shot on a basic-level DSLR, was single-handedly directed and edited by Siya. “Something hilarious and scary happened after I finished my final edit. I used the Pinnacle Studio software on my laptop to edit the video and there was a watermark but I did not take it too seriously at first,” says Siya. Issue was after the final cut, Siya did not know what to do with the watermark. “That’s when I had to go to a professional agency and they had redo the entire thing. I was in distress, but it all turned out just fine.” But these were merely glitches which are now forgotten.

Siya learnt the basics of editing from guys who used to edit wedding videos for the family. The 16-year-old, who wants to pursue law after her higher secondary education, says the film was a delight to make.

“We used to drive for hours and hours in our car with Pandeyji endlessly telling me about the mills and remembering the plight of the mill workers during the strike.” The 76-year-old lived through the strike and had friends who were mill workers. “In budhi aankhon ne bahut kuch dekha hai bitiya. Bombay aisi jagah thi jahan mehnat karne se kaam aur paisa milta tha, ab vo din nahi rahein. (These old eyes have seen everything, child. Bombay used to be a place where if you are ready to work hard you would get money and work but those days are gone now),” Pandeyji says in the documentary.

Siya wanted to capture the essence of Old Bombay and the history of mills from the perspective of a 16-year-old teenager. It is commendable that a girl that age had the maturity to chose a topic so sensitive and sensational and come up with a documentary which is extremely innocent in the way it has been handled. “I did not interfere with her script or the way she wanted to go about it. I did not want to cloud her judgment. It was, afterall, from the point of view of a 16-year-old,” says Priya.

Siya is passionate about film making but she doubts whether she can do this full time. “It is a lot of work. I don’t know whether I will be able to sustain myself if I do this for a living. I do not have much clarity on what exactly I am going to do but I am interested in pursuing law,” says Siya.