Raivision Film & TV Production

19/09/2022

STARTING SOON ON ZOOM VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS…

02/09/2021

On Sunday 5 September I will be speaking with Albert Prasad. In my opinion Albert is of the most talented musician, music creator and singer of Fiji. He was an important team member at FNU in 2011-21 when we created some great original songs with Ajen Prasad and Saral Dass and late Daya Nand, Kavita Sudarshan and Kishore Chetty as singers.

31/08/2021

Raivision Dialogue with Ashfaaq Khan Session 01 Journey of a Screenwriter, Filmmaker, and an Actor

In this video Auckland based Ashfaaq Khan speaks with Dr Satish Rai on his creative journey from Fiji to New Zealand. Our apologies for the longer than usual video. Sense of time was lost as the conversation went on. This sometimes happens when two people with similar mindset reminisce a shared journey.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QixbDm-ZQOU

In this video Auckland based Ashfaaq Khan speaks with Dr Satish Rai on his creative journey from Fiji to New Zealand.

13/07/2021

After producing 40 plus films and 300 plus television programs since 1998 in Australia, Fiji, India, and the UK, today I finally submitted my first application to Screen Australia for funding feature film Naraini which seeks to tell the tragic story of brave girmitya woman Naraini who had dared to challenge the brutality of indenture in Fiji. After making a documentary film on Fiji’s illustrious Fiji girmitya Pt Totaram Sanadhya in India in 2020, I now wish to tell the story of brave Naraini to the world. Although Naraini was punished by the CSR and the colonialists in Fiji, her story (along with another brave Fiji girmitya woman Kunti) had played a major role in the girmit abolishment movement in India soon after the tragic incidence in Fiji in 1910. Their cases were taken up by the legendary Indian politician Sarojini Naidu, which then galvanised the Indian men and especially women, towards the abolishment movement. Indian indenture system was abolished in 1917 and all the existing indentures were abolished in 1920.
The screen Australia application process is long and very demanding. It has taken me some time to put together all the requirements and today I feel relieved that I was able to submit. Now it is up to Screen Australia whether to accept or reject my application.

21/03/2020

Raivision Film presents to you its latest documentary film Pt Totaram Sanadhya-A Visionary Girmitya. This 50 min documentary film was filmed at different locations (Firozabad, Agra, Gujarat and Delhi) in February with almost zero production budget.
I am grateful to Aslam Khan and Ruchira Jain for their support in filming in India and Udma Thomas (NZ), Ashwini Kumar & Shobha Rae (Canada) and Bal Ram (Sydney for donations and Pranish Rai for lending his mini 4K camera for production of this film. Production of a 50 mins documentary film, especially away from home, is a daunting task for anyone. Six months ago, I promised to make this film; today I am sharing it with the world. This is labour of love, our dedication towards our brave ancestors in Fiji, global girmit communities and in India.
Special Thanks to Frederik Schroer and Dr Apurva Chaturvedi for their appearances in this documentary.

Film Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGF9G2Pnkto

Raivision Film presents to you its latest documentary film Pt Totaram Sanadhya-A Visionary Girmitya. This 50 min documentary film was filmed at different loc...

21/03/2020

Final stages of creating digital file, uploading to my YOUTUBE Channel and sharing my documentary film Pt Totaram Sanadhya-A Visionary Girmitya.

14/03/2020

Completing postproduction of my documentary film Pt Totaram Sanadhya-A Visionary Girmitya. My sincere thanks to Aslam Khan, Ruchira Jain for assistance in filming in India, Udma Thomas (NZ), Bal Ram (Sydney), Ashwini Kumar and Shobha Rae Canada) for financial assistance and Dr Apurva Chaturvedi and Frederik Schroer for participating in this film. I will be sharing this film with you all soon.

27/01/2020

My 21 years in Fiji Islands

Totaram’s story of leaving his mother and village and getting trapped by an arkati

I was born in 1876, in Hirangau (Firozabad), in the Sanadhya family. In 1887 my father Pt Raveti Ram Ji, died, and my mother, my brothers Ramanlal and Durgaprasad and I were left unprotected. Father left his wealth for us, about four thousand rupees worth of jewellery and so forth, but the whole of it was gone in just one year! This was because the dealers gave us very little money for it when we put the jewellery in their shops and took out loans. This way, four thousand rupees worth of jewellery was expended in just a short time. I still remember those days of poverty, and when the memory clouds into my mind, the sky of my heart is covered by gathering clouds of sorrow.
My elder brother Ramanlal afflicted by sorrow, went to Calcutta and worked as an assistant at Reilly Brothers for 8 rupees a month, my brother paid his own expenses and also sent money home. I was studying in class three at a school in Hirangau with Pandit Kalyan Prasad. My mother used to say to me: ‘Son, the way things are, you should plan for your subsistence now’. I could not see my mother’s suffering, so I left home in 1893, and went off on foot for work. I had only 7 annas with me. Facing many difficulties on the way, I reached Prayag in about 16 days. From this place begins the story of my own insignificant life, a sorrowful story on Ram.
Having arrived in Prayag, I bathed in the bank of Bhagirathi. Afterwards I met an Ahir, the son of Daragani. Hearing my whole story, this Ahir pitied me and brought me to his home. I lived with this Ahir for about two months. For the rest of my life I will never forget the merciful things this Ahir did for me.
When I spent many days in Trithraj, and never found work, I used to think that I should go, that I should return to my home. But then the thought would come to my mind that I could not bear to go home then and see my mother’s hardship. It could not be good to be nothing but a burden on her, not giving any help at all. Sometimes the love of my mother drew me towards home, and sometimes the knowledge of my mother’s suffering compelled me to the thought that I should do any kind of work, and not go home. I was thus fallen to indecision.
One day when I was in a market near Katwali, engaged in this worrying about finances, a man I didn’t know came up to me and asked, ‘Do you want employment?’ I said ‘Yes’ Then he said, ‘Good, I can get you a very good job. It’s the sort of work which will make your heart joyful’. To this end I said, ‘I will work but I won’t be able to work for more than six months or a year’. He said, ‘Good! You should come. When you wish, then quit working. Nothing will happen. Come, you should visit Jaganath Ji’.
My mind was not mature. On these words I came along! Deceived in this way, high class Indians come and then bear hardships for their whole lives. Oh my well-educated countrymen! Have you ever thought about these brothers? Have you ever heard about these sons of this green, bounteous motherland who have been sent to other countries by the cruelty of the people running the depots? Hearing the story of these people won’t you feel the lice crawling on your ear?
These arkati fooled me and brought me to his house. Once there I saw about 100 men sitting in one line and about 60 women in another. Some people were cooking with the damp wood and getting tired of blowing and blowing on the stove-fire.

07/01/2020

Pt Totaram Sanadhya’s writing on Kunti

The Outrages Against Kunti

The arkatis fooled Kunti and her husband at Lakhupur district, Gorakhpur, and sent them to Fiji. These people had to suffer great difficulties there. At that time Kunti was twenty years old. With great difficulty Kunti was able to protect her virtue for four years. Then a sardar and an overseer began a great effort to destroy her virtue. On 10 April 1912, at the banana plantation called Sabukere, the overseer gave the task of cutting grass, at a place apart from all the other men and women, where no witnesses could be found, and no one could hear her crying.
The sardar and the overseer went there to r**e her. On the threat of the overseer, the sardar tried to grab Kunti’s arm. Kunti freed her arm, ran and jumped into nearby river. By god’s will, the dingy of a boy named Jaidev, was nearby. Kunti was saved from drawing. Jaidev pulled her into his dingy and took her across the river. When Kunti told the white plantation owner about the incident, he replied ‘Go away, I don’t want to hear about field things’. Afterwards, Kunti did not go to work through the 13 April. On 14 April she was given the task of weeding twenty chains of grass, and her husband was given a task one mile away. Also, Kunti’s husband was beaten so much that the poor man was half dead.
Kunti had someone write about the incident in a newspaper and it was published in Bharat Mitra. The government of India noticed this account, and an investigation of the incident was made in Fiji. An immigration officer arrived there and threatened Kunti. But Kunti said that what she had published in Bharat Mitra was completely right. No matter how much we praise the courage and fortitude of Kunti, it is not enough. She jumped into a river and protected her virtue, and even when she was dependent on the immigration officer, she rebuked him.
Having listened to the story of Kunti, will not our brothers make an effort to stop this coolie-system?
(My Twenty-One Years in Fiji Islands (1991 p 47-48)
My addition about Kunti
Records show that Kunti had returned to India in 2014, a few months after Pt Sanadhya did. She returned with her husband and their daughter (if I recall rightly). She joined the Marwari anti-girmit abolition movement located at 56 Harrison Road (MG Road today) in Calcutta. I do not know whether she had returned to her village in Gorakhpur after the abolishment campaign had ended in 1917, when the girmit pratha was abolished. Research needs to be undertaken to find out what happened to her and her family and whether any of her descendants still live in India.

01/01/2020

My first short article of 2020 is my dedicaion to the champion of the abolishment of girmit, Fiji girmitya and proud son of India, Pt Totaram Sanadhya.

28/12/2019

Thanks to my friend Shri Ramlu, I am reading again after many years Pt Totaram's My 21 Years in Fiji...I will share a few excerpts from this book as I prepare to make a film on Pt Sanadhya's life and contributions to the girmityas in Fiji and his visionary contributions to the abolishment of girmit in 1971. It is now widely acknowledged that his book was intrumental in abolishment of girmit.
My 21 years in Fiji Islands
Excerpts
1. The opinion of some unbiased people on the subject of the Fiji-dwelling Indians
Miss H. Dudley
Living in a country where the system called, ‘indentured labourer’ is in vogue, one is continually oppressed in spirit by the fraud, injustice, and inhumanity of which fellow creatures are victim.
Fifteen years ago, I came to Fiji to do mission work among the Indian people here. I had previously lived in India for five years. Knowing the natural timidity of Indian village people and knowing also that they had no knowledge of any country beyond their own immediate district, it was a mater of great wonder to me as to how these people could have been induced to come thousands of miles from their own country to Fiji. (p 79)

10/12/2019

Doing my research for my next documentary film Pt Totaram Sandhya-A Visionary Girmit...hopyfully will be released for 2020 Girmit Freedom Year....

'After living in Fiji for twenty-one years, he returned to India, in 1914, and wrote about his experience in the book, "My Twenty-One Years in the Fiji Islands" This book was used as the main source of information in the campaign to end the Indian indenture system'.

31/10/2019

31/10/2019

22/10/2019

After successfully producing my dream film project Lord Rama in Exile-An Epic Journey of Survival for the Global Girmityas, today I announce production of my next epic documentary film on the life and achievements of Pandit Totaram Sanadhya. Panditji was a visionary girmitya and a proud son of India. Born in a village of Hirangaon near Agra in UP, he spent 21 years in Fiji as girmitya. He returned to India in March 2014 and joined the national movement to abolish the dreadful Indian indenture (girmit) system. It is generally accepted today that Panditji had greatly influenced this movement through his writings in Fiji and later in India when his book was written by Pt Banarasidas Chaturvedi. In 1922 he joined Gandhiji at the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat where he died in 1947. This documentary film aims to capture Panditji's life in India before he was transported to Fiji, his 21 years in Fiji and his life after he returned to India, his home in 1914.
I am planning to visit India early 2020 to conduct further research on his life in India, including visits to Sabarmati Ashram and his village Hirangaon in UP. I will be doing some initial filming for the documentary film while I am in India.
Next year marks the abolition of all the remaining girmit in Fiji and all other girmit colonies. I hope to complete and launch this film in 2020 as a tribute to Panditji and all the global girmityas.
This is a big and ambitious film project that I have undertaken. I am confident of making this film. I hope I continue to get support from my core team as well as the global girmitya community for this film. Panditji stood tall among the girmityas. He was an inspirational leader who led from the front. His vision and work have contributed hugely towards abolishing the abhorrent girmit pratha which saw inhuman exploitation of more than a million young Indian men, women and children. Let us join hands to tell his story to the world.