Jholmolia: The Sacred Water

In the year 2009, cyclone Aila hit southwest Bangladesh and southeast India. It caused a lot of short-term and long-term damages to the people and their livestock. Hurka, one of the villages near the coastal area of southeast Bangladesh, was hit hard by Cyclone Aila. A few months after Aila, a group of men and women from the capital Dhaka were visiting Hurka for a different reason. I was among them- with a camera and working behind the camera. However, there is a pond in Hurka village named Jholmolia, which did not drown in the cyclone even when the rest of the village went under water. The villagers see this as a miracle. Jholmolia pond is their only source of drinking water, a lifesaver. They also believe that the pond is sacred. People come from far, far away to get water from the pond. When we ourselves have locked water and life in a bottle, we are sentenced to live a life with preservatives. In contrast, the people of Hurka village drink Jholmolia's sacred water fearlessly. Jholmolia pond, which was filled with waterlilies, stimulated me somehow. I kept filming the people who came to Jholmolia's ghat and the reflection of their faces in the water. 'Jholmolia - The Sacred Water', the documentary, is an intimate observation and exploration of the life and living of people in a south west coastal village of Bangladesh over a six year period in the aftermath of Cyclone Aila.