Earth Charmers

English/29mins 55secs/2001
Producer: Beacon Television
Commissioned by: ZEE Telefilms Ltd.

Subject Focus: Sustainable lifestyles and organic farming

Summary: Earth Charmers, a television series that sets out to discover the strength of traditional Indian knowledge pertaining to lifestyles, farming and eco-systems. India is an ancient civilisation. Her cultural history dates back to more than 4000 years. Traditional practices here have always stressed a reverence for the elements of Nature as the very source of life. Rituals have been established as strategies to preserve and propagate the understanding of the intrinsic relationship of man and nature. Our ecological culture is based on sustenance, striving for an equation where production dominates consumption. Our farming has been tuned to the rhythms of nature and its laws of cyclical change. Its strength being high output despite low external input, coupled with the know-how to organically counter pests, disease and the vagaries of nature. The series assumes greater significance today, when fertilizers and pesticides have made farming aggressive. Chemical farming invades the sanctity of soil and strives to dominate. The indigenous practices have been labelled as backward by the western observers. Farmers have been lured to the cash-intensive chemical farming, which has ultimately denuded the fertility of their land and the environment. The indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides, fertilisers and ground water has brought many farmers to the brink of destruction. Moreover, the fragile balance between the elements of nature has been seriously disturbed. In such a grim scenario, there is a silent minority that is striving to rejuvenate the age-old knowledge based cultural practices. While some are engaged in practicing the traditional organic farming, the others are spearheading the campaign to harvest rainwater at the community level. Earth Charmers attempts to profile these attempts of individuals, organisations and communities to restore and popularise the ecologically sound traditional practices. The series profiles these initiatives to highlight the fact that it is possibly these very practices that have the potential to offer solutions to not just Indian but global problems too.

Producer’s/Director’s Profile: Under the banner of Beacon Television Mr. Muralidhara has directed and produced several programmes for Channels like ZEE TV, DD10, Mumbai channel, Siti Cable, Doordarshan. Also worked as Freelance TV journalist for Parakh. As a journalist reported live in most NDTV and Doordarshan Election Analysis from Mumbai. Seema Muralidhara has worked as a Director-Producer, and also on concept and script. She has directed and produced several programmes for channels like ZEE Network, Doordarshan, etc. Their TV series Earth Charmers on organic farming was awarded Bronze Tree in India’s first National Film Festival on Wildlife and Environment titled Vatavaran 2002.Earth Charmers was screened at Zanzibar International Film Festival 2002, Tanzania. Screen Panasonic nominee for Best TV Programme Hum Zameen, 1994, Onida Awards nominee for Best Environment Programme Hum Zameen, 1995. Dinaman award for investigative news report on prison conditions in India.