New Yorker wants to tell India’s stories

OSCAR-winning director Megan Mylan has taken inspiration from India for her documentaries

Smile Pinki and After My Garden Grows.

The New York-based director of Lost Boys of

Sudan first visited India about six years ago to make the Oscar-winning documentary Smile Pinki, which tracked the life of a five-year-old girl from Varanasi who had a severe cleft palate.

Filming in India “was such a privileged way to get to know this country”, said Mylan.

“When I reached Varanasi, people were calling it a small town, but for Americans, if a town has a million people, it’s not small.

“I got to see the ancient place, the sacredness of it. I also met wonderful educated doctors.

“I got to see an interesting side of India while making the film and then, when we came back, I toured cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai and I got to see another side of India. “There are a billion people and billion stories to tell here.”

She is back in the country on a tour to promote her latest project,

After My Garden Grows, but wishes she had more time in which to meet Indians.

“We went to a radio station and I thought: ‘This could be an interesting documentary.’ I am always on the lookout,” said Mylan, who concentrates her filmmaking on social issues.

Her latest work is about child marriages in India.

It tells the story of Monika, a teenager in rural India who grows food to feed her family — and in so doing nurtures the seeds of her own independence — in a tiny rooftop garden.

After My Garden Grows ended its run in various major cities on Thursday.

Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan recently threw his weight behind the production, hosting a special screening of the film in Mumbai.

Mylan, who has been making films for almost two decades, believes that support from Bollywood actors will make documentaries popular in India.

“It’s incredibly powerful. Documentaries start out with the challenge of audiences remembering them as dreadfully boring films they watched in high school. But if people who have a big audience can tell their fans to give it a try, it will help,” she said.

Asked if she would like to make a fiction film with any Bollywood celebrity, she said: “I love what I do. I am not sure if I’ll be good at fiction filmmaking. But life takes you to an unexpected path. I don’t say no to anything, but it’s not the path I am aiming for. I can make documentaries for the rest of my life.”

But Mylan is impressed by the way Hindi movies are made.

“Bollywood films are incredible productions. We don’t have anything like it in the US. It’s impressive,” she said. — Indo-Asian News Service