Thithi — From a village in India to the Lincoln Center

Over spring break, I had the pleasure of watching my cousin’s (Raam Reddy), debut film at the Lincoln Center in New York as part of the New Directors, New Films Festival. His film tells the story of the death of a hundred year old man (Century Gowda — pictured above) in a village in southern India. He shot the film entirely with non-professional actors — he literally cast farmers in the village. During the showing, one of his friends sent him the photograph shown above — Century Gowda broadcast on every monitor across a block in New York. He shared it to Facebook and it garnered over 500 likes, significantly more likes than any post he had previously developed. What makes this post so special? I believe it is the diametrically opposed images of a farmer in India with the most cosmopolitan city in India. I don’t think there is any point in Century Gowda’s life in which he ever thought his likeness would appear in New York. Nor did the director of the film. And that is beautiful. And why this post became so popular.