Scribbles on Akka (2000)

Scribbles on Akka is a short film on the life and works of the 12th century saint-poet Mahadevi Akka. Akka means elder sister in Kannada, the language in which she composed. The poet got buried in popular iconography till the late 20th century when the contemporary feminist artists, writers and scholars excavated her legacy. In this film her radical poems, written with the female body as a metaphor and desire as a vocabulary, have been composed in contemporary musical language and visualized on the terrain of the 20th century feminist discourse. Two actors perform the poems within the current body-politics. Mahadevi, famed as Akka- elder sister, while leaving the domestic arena in search of God, also abandoned clothing. The film explores the meaning of this denial through the works of visual artists and writers, and testimonies of ordinary folks who nurtured her image through centuries in their folklore and oral literature. A celebration of rebellion, femininity and legacy down nine hundred years.