Sangala in Marathi refers to the water that accumulates at the bottom of a well. Raoba Gajmal’s Marathi film of the same name is a moving exploration of the hardships of an aging farmer in the drought-hit Marathwada region of Maharashtra, how he literally plunges to the lower depths to provide not just for his human family but his beloved cattle as well.
He is a silent, unsmiling and stoic presence; as though he wasn’t alive, complains his perennially nagging wife. His fields have turned arid, trees have been sold, the well has almost dried up and there is debt to pay off.
The core of the film is all about his efforts to pump water out of the parched well. How he gingerly fixes the electrical wiring, starts the motor, only to find the air trapped in the tube preventing him from drawing out the water and how he then climbs down the well to repair the machine but with little success.
Gajmal’s film, spread over a day, makes one invested in the plight and struggles of its protagonist. One can feel his desperation and arduousness and exhaustion of life. The audience finds itself rooting for him, even while getting anxious about the new curveball life may throw at him at the next turn.
There are moments of rooted humour as well, to offer relief from the overwhelming tension—most so in the vignettes of the passersby offering uncalled for advice to the old man but being of little help and then themselves losing the precious water they are carrying from home in little mugs for their morning ablutions.
It’s the farmer’s persistence and resilience that help him ride out the rough time. With some much-needed help from a nameless young man (played by the director Gajmal himself) whose only marker of identity is his cap. Their unforeseen connection beautifully underscores the essential communal harmony that has been the bedrock of rural Indian society and culture for long.
Ultimately, Sangala is an uplifting and inspiring story that celebrates such community bonds and calls for perseverance and keeping the faith in one’s own self and in the goodness of others.
The 84-minute film, shot with a budget of Rs 20-25 lakh, won the Sant Tukaram Best International Marathi Film Award and its lead Anil Dabhade the Best Male Actor Award at the Pune International Film Festival 2025. It is set to travel next to Stuttgart and Rome.
Cinema Express/The New Indian Express caught up with its debutant director, Raoba Gajmal, after the twin wins. Excerpts from the conversation:
Your debut film is about a peasant, and you have dedicated it to the farmers. What is your own connection with the farming community?
My father is a farmer. He still does farming in our Kingaon village in the Gevrai tehsil/taluka of Beed district in Maharashtra. While our fields have not turned arid because of the drought, we have had to face shortage of potable water. I have tried to show that in the film.
How did you get into filmmaking?
I have a background in theatre. I am a professional actor, writer and director. I did my graduation in performing arts from Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University in Aurangabad and then started doing theatre there. I did a lot of one-act plays that got awarded in various competitions. Around 2017-2018 I moved to Mumbai from Aurangabad to pursue theatre. My wife, Komal Somare Gajmal, is also a theatre actress.
I consider the arts, which includes cinema and theatre, as a mirror of our society. But while pursuing dramatics I realised that not all the sections of our society were visible on stage. That’s when I decided to write and perform my own plays, based on our own stories, set in the world around me, about my village and its residents.
I started off by adapting Annabhau Sathe’s story “Smashanatil Sona” (Gold in the Crematorium, about exploitation of the Dalits in rural India). I was invited by Sangeet Natak Akademi to perform it in Mumbai. It gave me confidence and I wrote and directed 10-12 such plays. But I realised that they remained confined to Maharashtra, they were not able to travel outside of the state. I was not at peace in the theatre, I wasn’t getting the satisfaction. I tried writing a TV series but didn’t find anything personal to say and quit after six months. I felt that with the amount of hard work I was putting into this, I could easily make a good film instead.
Where did the idea of Sangala come from?
We have the slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan [coined by the late former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri]. While the jawan is in our consciousness, kisan, the annadaata (giver of food), has become synonymous with only suicides. He has been silenced, invisibilized. How can the man of soil be reduced to dust? The farmer keeps working ceaselessly, without thinking of benefits, from the time the sun rises to when it sets, but people don’t notice him, they ignore him. He doesn’t just take care of his human family but the cattle as well. I have often noticed how my father and uncles never smile. The story emerged from that.
When did you begin work on?
I completed the script during the lockdown when there was a lot of time but no work. I also watched a lot of world cinema—The Hurt Locker, Children of Heaven, The Song of Sparrows... I find Iranian films very inspiring in how they see positivity in negative situations. There’s something motivational about even their tales of sorrow.
But, quite often arthouse films are not understood by people on whose lives they are based. I wanted to make a film about the farmers for the farmers themselves.
Around the time an OTT platform showed interest in the project but I had a condition attached—that I will do the casting myself. I didn’t want the typical, well-known, commercial names. I decided that if I don’t get the actor I am looking for, I’ll train a farmer for the role.
How did you pick Anil Dabhade for the role? What about the other actors in the ensemble?
I saw him in a friend’s short film. He is not full time into theatre. In fact, he drives an auto rickshaw in Aurangabad. Most of the ensemble is from my theatre group Rangfauj. The film’s production house is also called Rangfauj.
Where did you shoot the film?
We shot it over a tight schedule of 12-13 days in May 2022 in Jamwadi Tanda and Rajapur in Aurangabad district.
How did you negotiate the transition from stage to screen?
Natyashastra and Cinemashastra are very different. It’s like moving from roads to railway tracks. So I made a 20 minute short film, Dopaharchi Shala (Afternoon School), as preparation for the feature film. I worked with the same team. My cinematographer Anil Appasaheb Bade has good knowledge of lenses. His photographs always stand out. He is also a music composer and could understand the mood of the situations. He shoots wedding videos for a living and shot the film with Sony 6R camera he uses in weddings. We had equipment like tripods, reflectors on location. The sound design, background sound, foley, editing etc were all done in Mumbai.
You show the communal harmony in the village in a most subtle, effective and affecting manner…
It’s like how things get blurred in bright sunshine. In rural India you can’t differentiate between Hindus and Muslims by how they look. I also didn’t want to highlight the identity overtly. Religion boils down faith and trust. A farmer takes care of the cow as his own daughter, whether he is a Hindu or a Muslim. There’s no religion, caste involved. A farmer’s culture is not to do with religion but humanity.
What’s the film you are working on next?
It’s about the youth. Sangala takes place over a day, that will be about one night.
