Imagination in the Reel World
Critically engaging with Anand Pandian’s “Reel World.”
Anand Pandian wrote what he calls “an anthropology of creation.” This subtitle not giving much more depth to the focus of his ethnography than the title, “Reel World.” As someone who appreciates puns, this is a great title. As someone who was getting ready to read this novel but who was too lazy to read the summary on the back of the book, this title gave me very little to go off. But, that’s a minor detail.
The linguistic style in which Pandian writes the ethnography is very casual. This feeling is evoked with in the reader in large part due to the text language used, as well as the screenshots included of conversations. Further, the inclusion of these casual interactions gives the reader the sense that Pandian was very much entangled and intertwined in the lives of his subjects. It is the first ethnography that I have read in this class where I felt the author was actually, physically present in the setting of their subjects.
The way that Pandian crafted how the reader should experience his ethnography is what I’ll call the experimental engagement of the reader. I have never read a book like this before. It was difficult to understand how Pandian wanted the reader to engage at times but once that code was cracked, I saw exactly why he was doing it. Particularly in the chapter Time, he included a section with two columns side-by-side. Both are small stories within themselves, related but from different perspective. But instead of reading one column in its entirety, then reading the second column through, you are supposed to read them together. What? Why? How? I can’t explain how it makes sense but when I read the two columns at the same time, I got it. He wanted to show the duplicity seen between then, how the two connected stories take place in the same time and space but are separated. Another way Pandian used this experimental engagement was in his chapter on sound. In one section of the chapter he had the lines curve up and down across the page. The lines are shaped like waves, sound waves. The reader has to follow the ups and downs while reading each word, unconsciously creating intonation on each word even though you are not speaking. Pandian is able to create sound and a depth to that sound, where there is none.
Pandian’s engagement with imagination really resonates with me within my research. My research is focusing on how college activists imagine the future of politics and the effects of their engagement with it. Clearly my topic differs from Pandian’s of the cinema creation in “Kollywood.” But, the link between them of imagination is strong. This is because we are all imagining ourselves every day, how we perceive each other, how other perceive us, and how we will create an impact. There are differences between how a Tamil filmmakers perceives the effects that their film will have and how a twenty-something students in the United States perceives the effects of their activism on politics. But they utilize the same process to reach different goals.
