#50 Revitalising connections to community and Earth through ethical storytelling with Sanjana Sekhar
“Part of the healing process, and part of the process of decolonising the lens, is to acknowledge the history of the camera, and then to say, now that we’ve named that wound, how can we work with the people in front of us to create a different way of storytelling that might be rooted back in the way we we used to do it, prior to this sort of extraction mindset that has grown in the last several centuries.”
What role does storytelling play in revolutionising our work to heal our current selves and natural world, as well as our collective future? How can we re-establish a culture of relatedness and reciprocity through reclaiming our wisdom and positions as storytellers and communicators?
We are joined today by Sanjana Sekhar, a filmmaker, climate activist, & Ayurvedic wellness communicator who uses her work in ethical filmmaking to amplify character-driven stories that heal our human relationships to ourselves, each other, and our planet, with a specific interest in socioecological justice, ancestral knowledge, and systems of re-nourishment. In this heart-warming and insightful conversation, Agrita and Sanjana explore the medicine of storytelling, in relation to the ancient practice catalysing our healing work within community and Earth, to revive lost and damaged connections to who we really are in this interconnected world.
What to look out for:
Sanjana's journey into professional storytelling and Ayurvedic wellness
Concept of "increasing your footprint", particularly as BIPOC people - revived by Farmer Rishi
Urgency in contextualising the concept of regeneration as an age-old concept, rather than a Western/modern one
Sanjana's work in decolonising the lens to co-create with the communities/individuals being documented, as opposed to the extractive nature of colonial documentary
Challenges Sanjana faced in allowing herself space and time to heal within the broken mainstream model of filmmaking
Importance of practicing gratitude and respect to land and Indigenous communities as a settler, in an attempt to re-indigenise ancestral lands
Emphasis on reclaiming being and indigenous sovereignty, with exploration of Sanjana's productions Expedition Reclamation and a documentary on small-scale Indian farmers' retaliation to Big Agriculture
Need for us to reclaim our positions as stewards and storytellers, not necessarily on a professional level but on a personal/daily level
Learning to get your ears first in order to find your voice and bring it to conversation
Resources:
Transcript
Agrita: I can already sense the amount of wisdom sharing that's going to be happening in this episode, but before we dive into the depths of ethical storytelling and filmmaking and how it can catalyse our healing work for our interpersonal relationships and also connections to the Earth, I would love to begin the episode by asking if you could tell us one of the first stories that you remember, whether as a child or even in recent times, that has had a profound impact on the way you are today, your current being and essentially your standpoint in the world?
Sanjana: That is such a great question and so relevant to the power of storytelling. I think that turning point for me or that big watershed moment for me happened pretty recently, actually, and it was in the form, less of a beginning, middle and end story, and more of a reframing meaning of the story that we tell ourselves as humans, about ourselves and about our role in the world. For some context, when I first started getting into the environmental movement, it was through the lens of what I now understand to be white environmentalism. At the time I didn't really understand that I thought this was just the movement for sustainability, the movement to safeguard our future and planet, and I was really excited by a lot of the things that I was hearing, about the ways in which I, as an individual, could reduce my consumption, I could be more intentional with my purchasing, I could be more intentional with my waste. I could try to go zero waste, I could try to go vegan. All of these concepts that laddered up to that idea of “sustainability”, were kind of what first took hold of me and got me interested in the environmental movement.
I think that's the case for a lot of people, and I think that for a lot of people it stops there, or that causes a lot of stress, and I started to learn the more that I got into the movement, why that's not the most generative way of looking at tackling the climate crisis. One of the big shifts for me was learning this idea first of regeneration, and at the time I thought this is kind of a new idea, right? I thought this is something people had just discovered because a lot of, the way that this termination is framed is as if it's a new concept, as if it's something that was just discovered, and to sort of define it for anyone who might not know what it is, it's basically how can we, instead of just stopping at sustainability, not making things worse, keeping things as they are, how can we actually work with Nature to create cycles of nourishment and to even revitalize ecosystems that might have experienced destruction? How can we apply that to things like farming? How can we apply it to technology? How can we apply it to all these different spaces? You hear terms like regeneration, like biomimicry, and all of these ideas that sound very new and very Western, and so that was the first shift that happened.
I got really excited about this, because I was like okay, this is better than sustainability. This is something that feels more positive, more “how can we make things better rather than just keeping things as they are”, sustaining things. But again, the more I learned with that, the more I learned that regeneration is actually an age-old concept. It's something that has popped up across Indigenous cultures around the world, it's something that exists even in my own culture. In South Asia, if you think about Ayurveda for example, the Indian system of wellness and ecological knowledge, it's based on these principles of reciprocity, these principles of living in harmony with Nature, as a give and take, and so realising that regeneration is actually this age old concept and it's something that should be credited as an age old concept, that was a shift for me too. But I think the biggest thing that happened, and this goes back to your original question, and that's setting the context, but the story that really reframed it for me was I took a gardening class with this incredible teacher named Rishi Kumar, also known as Farmer Rishi, and he talks about this idea of increasing your footprint. I'd never heard of anything like this because the rhetoric that we really see in the climate action movement, or have been seeing historically in the climate action movement, is really reduce your footprint, right? Make yourself as small as possible, make your impact as small as possible, and what I loved about Rishi, and the way that he talked about it, and again, he's drawing from a lot of his own Indigenous knowledge as a South Asian person, but then also tapping into that same echo that echoes across the world from ancestral cultures which is you are never going to have a zero impact, and that's a good thing. You're part of your ecosystem, and so instead of saying how can I reduce myself, how can you actually step up to the plate? How can you actually say yes to the responsibility that for so long we've turned our backs on, or many of us have turned our backs on, and that was a huge reframing for me because it went from humans are destructive and destructive only, to humans actually have an incredible capacity for good, and we're selling ourselves short if we don't step up to that. I think that changed the way that I think about not just climate action, but just in general how I show up in the world. I'm definitely not perfect at it, no one is, but even just trying for that, even just trying to think about how can I be a nourishing force in this situation? How can I use my communication in my storytelling in a nourishing way, has been something that is far more exciting than the rhetoric of “make yourself small, make yourself invisible”, especially I think as BIPOC people, as women, that's rhetoric we've already heard. So the idea of saying no, don't make yourself more invisible but actually step up and lend a hand is really powerful.
Agrita: Yeah, so what I personally find so fascinating about the practice of storytelling is, what you picked up on, it is not a recent, it's not a Western practice. It is so old, it's rooted within our cultures, especially as part of BIPOC communities, and the reason why I'm so close to it is because the practice allows us to restore and regenerate the wisdom that we have lost either in, within ourselves or within our communities, through major cultural and social shifts such as colonisation and even immigration. I was initially going to ask you about how identifying as a regenerative communicator has really grounded your work in this restoration process, but prior to our conversation today, you informed me that you've outgrown that label, so we would love to hear your rationale behind that, and has that really helped in making the process more efficient, of reviving your inner wisdom or the wisdom in the communities that you document, the communities that you interact with?
Sanjana: Yeah, that's a great question. I think that the contextualisation of regeneration as a new concept not this age old concept is part of why I've been leaning a little bit away from it. I still use it and I still think it's a great word to describe the concept itself, but I think that I've learned to use it in combination with other words like reciprocity, like nourishment, and that can sort of help point back to its roots in ancestral teachings. Really just to sort of avoid falling into the trap of “look at this new way of storytelling” because like you said, it's a very old way of storytelling. If you even think about, and you kind of touched on this, if you think about what storytelling, it is culture, it's not even just that it's important to culture, storytelling is culture. I think that the way that storytelling has been done for millennia is in a very circular and reciprocal and sort of mythological way, versus a linear hero’s journey, or sort of individualistic “this is what happened to this one person” kind of way. It's very meandering, it can be very community building really.
I think that reframing has been helpful to me in looking at storytelling from a decolonised lens. So, how can, instead of me pointing my camera at a person in front of me and extracting their story from them in order for me to use it for my portfolio or for my voice or for my whatever, I think the more I learn, the more I'm understanding what it looks like to co-create with the person in front of me and to connect with the cultures and the people in front of my camera, is to see them as team mates, and to ask them how they want to be represented as well. To me, that's a big part of healing, because historically, the camera has been a tool of exploitation and the people that have had access to the cameras have been historically white men, and that has meant that they've gotten to go point their camera at whoever around the world and then profit off of those images, profit off of those films without the person in front of them sometimes knowing that they were in a photograph or a film or anything like that. So, I think that part of the healing process, and part of the process again of decolonising the lens, is to acknowledge that's the history of the camera, and then to say now that we've named that wound, how can we work with the people in front of us to create a different way of storytelling in a way that might be rooted back in the way we used to do it, we've always done it, prior to this sort of extraction mindset that has grown in the last several centuries.
Agrita: So how do you go about in embodying these ethical practices within your work? It would be really nice if you could share to the audience how you go about in asking for consent or any other ways that you make sure that the ethics and the respectful take on your work in communication is at the centre?
Sanjana: That's a great question. I think that the first thing for me there is to acknowledge that I don't have all the answers and I don't always know the right way of doing it, but that asking the question and having the question be the guiding light throughout the process of “how can we make this ethical?”, “how can we make this feel generative, nourishing, even if we don't always achieve it?”, making that the goal is in itself decolonizing. I think when in any situation that pops up instead of going to the default, which would be coming from the tradition that we've all learned of storytelling you know, whatever the default might be of oh, if this thing happens, then just do whatever the director wants, or do whatever you know X person wants, or just go by the schedule because we laid out the schedule for the day, so just stick to it. If we can instead say okay, we know we have a schedule, but clearly this person needs more time or this person is uncomfortable with this thing how can we bring those two needs in conversation with each other and figure out the best way forward? Because there are going to be multiple sets of needs and I think that it's hard sometimes because there isn't a mainstream model for it, and it's also hard because the mainstream model doesn't typically allow for taking time for incorporating a multitude of voices. So, some specific examples I can give you are, I've had a situation where we were working on a project and if a character isn't comfortable with a shot and they say I don't actually want to do that, as a filmmaker saying okay, that's fine, you know versus saying, but we really need it or, but we need to have it anyway, or let's push them for it. And of course, there are going to be times when there needs to be some compromise on that, because as the storyteller, you have a vision for what's going to actually make the film come to life, but I think that being able to be as flexible as possible with that and really working with the person in front of the camera to make sure that they understand why you're asking for something and that you understand why they're uncomfortable about that thing, I think that is something that is a practice and it's something that plays out differently each time, but is important to strive for.
Agrita: When you first started out as a filmmaker, did you face that challenge of showing reciprocity to the person who you were documenting? Did you face any challenges within your own team?
Sanjana: Yeah, well, when I first started out as a filmmaker, I didn't even have these concepts in my head. I was really just trying to follow the lead of the people above me and the people that were mentoring me and the people who were bringing me onto projects. And I think that, in the midst of trying to learn the craft as it stands today, I wasn't thinking as much about what would it be like for me to be the person responsible for this project. What will it be like when I'm a director? What will it be like when I'm the one responsible for creating that rapport between people? At the time I was working in more white spaces and so the people both behind and in front of the camera were white, and I think that question didn't come up as much, but as I've moved into this realm of socioecological justice, and as I've been trying to learn from fellow BIPOC people, and South Asian people, and all sorts of leaders across this continent and others, I think that question has come up more, because now that history of exploitation is present, and it's been processed. For me to even realise that I need to be asking that question all the time, and I think now I'm there where I'm asking the question of how can we make this more ethical? But it is hard in the sense that, again, when you're trying to work in this manner and you're bringing more voices in and you want to slow down the process so that people have time to eat and sleep and be with their families instead of, you know, when I was in New York, working in the camera department, we would work 12-16 hour days, multiple back to back days, and I didn't even have it the worst because I don't have a family to take care of and so I think that there have been strikes recently for example, in the film industry there was an authorisation for a strike recently across the industry because the working conditions are so bad. I think that part of what I try to do, and that I have the privilege to do because I work on smaller, more intimate sets, is to make sure that people are going home and sleeping and are eating, and again, it doesn't always happen because sometimes, especially in documentary, you're moving and moving and it sometimes hard to make that happen, but again, striving for it and bringing everyone’s voices, it slows down the process, and I think that's a beautiful thing, but our current systems don't operate that way at all. Our current systems want you to work fast and produce a lot quickly, and it's very hard to shake that mentality, and it's hard to explain the mentality you're striving for, to the people oftentimes that are funding you. So, it's definitely a balance.
Agrita: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that experience. I can totally imagine how difficult it is for somebody who is so grounded, so aware of their communities, other people and communities, and just the world itself, and to go into this profession that you are so passionate about but not having to put your morals first, it can be really difficult, so this is eye opening for sure. It’s so inspiring to see how much you've evolved within that time frame and within the profession that you're so interested in and so invested into.
Sanjana: Yeah, I think that I've just been very lucky with a lot of this, where I've gotten to drink in a lot of the learning from people that are pushing for systems of nourishment, and I've gotten to be on smaller sets where I'm able to try and help create that atmosphere. I think that it's much harder on bigger productions and I can't even imagine trying to create change at such a large scale being one person. So, I think I've been lucky getting to work in some situations where everyone is striving for that kind of mentality, but it's definitely a learning process for sure.
Agrita: Do you think that if we were to focus on establishing a culture of relatedness, whether it's in filmmaking or in any other profession, even in our personal lives, do you think that if we were to focus on creating that culture of relatedness, to people within our communities or immediate family and beyond, that could potentially help us in prioritising reciprocity and respect for one another?
Sanjana: Absolutely yeah, I really love how you say that, a culture of relatedness. I think that is sort of the fundamental problem when it comes to storytelling, the climate crisis, really anything. I mean, that's what the mindset of extraction is built on, is breaking our relatedness. When you no longer see something as your kin, when you no longer see something as connected to you, it becomes easier to exploit it and it becomes easier to make it invisible and it becomes easier to take from it, so I think that if we can mend that spirit and remember that none of us are these individuals circuits that exist outside of the realm of everyone and everything else, that brings a lot of healing. So for me, I just started studying Ayurveda, which again is that Indian ancestral system or ancestral science of life, and it's based on the principles of Nature. It understands humans as part of Nature, so the way that Nature has cycles, so do we. The way that things affect nature, they affect us as well, because we're a part of it. I was really driven to start studying that because I was watching and learning from the movements here in North America for Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous folks here pushing for re-indigenisation of these lands, and I was thinking, I'm not from these lands, I'm a settler here as well, how do I re-indigenise my own culture and learning? Ayurveda was, and is, for me one of the biggest steps in that because it's about revitalising that connectedness, and it's about saying, because we are part of this larger system, the system being Nature, the Universe, etc., and we're constantly impacted by it, that's important to our wellness, is recognising that we're part of it. So, I think that was a way for me to sort of influence my own storytelling, from that perspective.
Agrita: Yeah, I like how you picked up on showing respect and gratitude for the land that you're not native to. On your website you mentioned that you are living on ancestral lands, and it would be great if you could tell us some of your experiences on how you've shown gratitude to that land, but also perhaps to the Native communities who are either living alongside you, or perhaps have been forced out because of processes such as gentrification?
Sanjana: Totally, there is so much to learn on that front, and I think that, again, sort of in line with everything else that we've talked about, to me, the first and most important thing is to realise that there's so much to learn and to then start actively researching that and keeping your eyes open. For me, what that's looked like is whenever there are events or organisations or companies based in the land that I'm currently on, which is ancestral Tongva land in what we now call Los Angeles, I try to attend, I try to support, I try to just sit down and listen. I think that one of the main sort of specific things I've been trying to practice is, oftentimes in filmmaking you pay a location feed for whatever set you're using, or soundstage you're using, or if you're shooting outdoors, maybe there's permitting that you have to pay for whatever land has jurisdiction or whatever entity has jurisdiction over that land, and what I've been practicing is anytime I shoot, I build in to my budget, a “location fee” to a land back movement or another organization that's supporting the Indigenous communities of the land that I filmed on, so that's one specific way that I'm trying to build that into my practice.
But I think a big part of it really, again, is just keeping your eyes open and learning and researching and right now, for example, I'm reading two books that have been eye opening and have been making me feel like I'm for the first time learning the real American history, but the first one is called the Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and the second one is called Required Reading by the Indian Collective, and both of them have just been really, really important, I think, in that process of learning about these lands.
Agrita: I'd really love to tap into the productions that you have made, either they've been produced already or they're in production right now. Two documentaries that really stood out to me was the Expedition Reclamation one and the one on small scale farmers in India and how they are reclaiming their economic health and retaliating Big Agriculture monopolies. I really was drawn to these productions because it really brings out the importance of reclaiming not only your knowledge, your ancestral knowledge, your belonging in the world, but also your mental and physical wellness. If you could tell us a little bit more about these productions and why it is so important to focus in on the process of reclaiming and what reclaiming really means to you?
Sanjana: I'll talk first about Expedition Reclamation, which is a short documentary highlighting 12 Black, Indigenous and WOC who are reclaiming belonging in outdoor, recreation and redefining outdoorsy. That has been such a transformational project for me. I'm someone who also is very interested in and spends a lot of time in the outdoors, and I've always had this experience of being the only person that looks like me out there. I never recognised what was making me uncomfortable because it was normal to me that I was the only person that looked like me out there, and then meeting the women in this film and being a part of this project, for context, it's part of the Brave Space project, which is a community and storytelling platform drummed up by Chelsea Murphy of She Colours Nature and Erin Joy Nash, and we also had a third co-producer Rebecca Graham on the projects, that was the four of us, and we have the 12 women in front of the camera. The community around the project, meeting all of them and working on the film, it felt the way you feel when you get a massage for the first time after a long time and you didn't realise you were holding all of this tension, and someone just worked it out of your body and you feel a sense of relief. You know, like you didn't even know you were carrying this, and I think that it was so incredible to me to realize that across this country, there are so many women that feel like they're the only out there. I was one of them. There are a dozen of them in the film, and there are dozen more in the community around the project, and to really get to build, again, community around that is the first step I think to reclaiming because it makes you realise that you're not alone. It legitimises our way of being in the world, it legitimises your experience, right? You're like, oh, I thought I was weird for feeling this way because I'm the only one out here, I'm the only one that feels this. Then you meet other people that have had this experience and suddenly you realise this is not uncommon, and I actually have solidarity in this because this is a systematic problem, where people have been removed from land, people have been either, their home country has been colonised or their own country has been colonised. Their own lands have been colonised and because of that, there's a separation from land.
What we have is basically, here in the US, through the “colonial project”, genocide of Indigenous folks across the country, slavery, and now there's influxes of immigration from people that are escaping whatever is happening in their own homelands and through that process, people get this disconnect, and what we see in the outdoors, it's just dominated by white folks and the way that they want to be recreating in the outdoors. That's great and legitimate as well, I'm not saying that we need to clear that out and make way for everyone else, but it's more just let's add to it. Let's say, okay, it's really awesome if you're out there bagging that peak or crushing that climb or whatever it might be, but what about the person who is just walking in the garden with her children? There should be as much space for that and as much value to that as these more extractive oftentimes ways of being in the outdoors. So, this film, I think, was just important in this idea like you were asking about reclamation, it's like, can you look in the mirror and say to yourself the way that I want to show up in the outdoors is legitimate? If you can do that, that is reclaiming your belonging in the outdoors. So, I think that the first step to that is building community, to show people hey you can do that because here are all these other people that are validating your experience when before you felt like it wasn't.
Agrita: And how about the farmers documentary?
Sanjana: Yeah, so that one is in development and probably will be for some time, just because there's so much for me to learn there before I feel like I can really dig into it in a way that tells the story fairly. India itself is such a diverse country and so I don't want to be reductive about it, but basically what I'm interested in, and what I'm learning about while I'm kind of putting together and what this film could look like is, is the movement for seed sovereignty in India. So basically, what we had, for context, was in the 1960s, this idea of the Green Revolution came through and it was a movement to industrialise farming in India with the promise of higher yields so that we could feed our people. But what actually ended up happening was this monopoly of genetically modified seeds and companies that would come in to sell the seed, sell the chemical that was then required to grow the seed. At first it was better yields, but then over time what ended up happening was depletion of soil, and when you're monocropping in these ways, you're losing thousands of varieties of seeds as well, so there's a loss of that diversity that's so important to keep the ecosystem strong. So essentially, a lot of that was leading to farmer suicide because you would have drought, the soil was poor, the crop would fail. They (farmers) could no longer pay back their debts to the companies from which they were buying seed and fertilizer, and so oftentimes a lot of farmers would drink that fertilizer and it would lead to suicide. But what's been incredible is seeing and learning from all of the leaders in India that are reclaiming that seed sovereignty, that are saving seeds, that are moving back to agroecology, which is really the ancestral way of farming in harmony with the ecosystem. It's such an inspiring movement to me because the Green Revolution caused a lot of pain, but to see the number of people across the country that are taking back their sovereignty and their seed sovereignty, and therefore their economic sovereignty and ecological sovereignty, has been really profound.
Agrita: I've actually grown up hearing about the farmer crisis in India to the point that it has been normalised, at least within my family and within so many different communities within India as well. It kind of felt as if you couldn't really find a solution for it, but ever since the farmer protests happened and I got the opportunity to become aware of what actually happened and then what is happening now, and again like you said, reclaiming all of these different types of sovereignty to make people realise that tapping into that wisdom that we've carried forward through generations is so essential in saving the country from crises like this. So, it's really heartwarming to see your work in that, and I can't wait to see the final production! It's so heartwarming and relieving to see that we're in this process of reclaiming, and it is not just an individual process, it is a community process, and that really, I think, catalyses our healing work in this area.
Sanjana: Totally. Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with all of that. I feel like, and I don't know if you've experienced this as well through your work, but to me, the process of reclamation always is visceral because first you have to come to terms with whatever it is that you're carrying, whatever the wound is, whatever the weight is, and that's an uncomfortable thing you know, and I think it takes a lot of energy to do that. But it's important to do it first before you can move on to building a better way of life for yourself or a better system at the macro level, and I think that's sort of the hardest part of climate action, oftentimes is really getting people to acknowledge the wound, the wound being just this entire colonial project, really, and all the ways in which it's manifested. It's such a broad topic, so I've been thinking a lot recently about it, because I think climate action, and a lot of the work oftentimes that I do, and I don't know if you've encountered this as well, but it can become very academic, and it's really hard to connect to it. I notice it even in the way that I speak a lot, I think it's hard for us to know how to talk about it in an emotional way. When the problem is so macro, or rather is all pervasive, how do you articulate something that is embedded in every fiber of our current society in a way that is personal and emotional? There are definitely people out there doing it, but that's something that I'm really learning as a storyteller. For decades, we've had people talking about the climate crisis, the glaciers are melting, the polar bears are dying and all of those things are sad and alarming, but I think that to a regular person, myself included, you hear that enough times and it doesn't hold any emotional meaning. It feels like data you know, and it is data, and a lot of the climate storytelling that we've seen has really been in this documentary-like, data-driven documentary space. I think that stuff is really important because it helps us learn more about topics and it helps us go deeper into topics, but it's harder to sort of feel an emotional connection to climate action and climate justice if you're hearing it from a data perspective. So, I think the opportunity ahead of us, and one that I am definitely trying to understand, is how to tap into this, to remember that humans are a part of any ecosystem and that means that climate is a human story as much as it's a story about the glaciers and the polar bears. It's also about us and our hopes and dreams; how can we tell stories and write plays and sing songs about that? I think that they exist, but how can we bring them into the light?
Agrita: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with your thoughts on the dehumanising experience of climate change documentation that we see. Through my academic journey so far, I've also realised that; it was only until my third year of studies that I actually was able to see, okay, this is the issue, what can we do about it apart from ways that conventional environmentalism, Western environmentalism has taught us? I do understand that a lot of academics will not see the power of incorporating morals and ethics into work as a scientist, but it is really important because in the end we are humans. Like you said, we are part of the ecosystem. We are emotional beings. We're more than just data and numbers. We can't reduce ourselves to that, so thank you for bringing that to light again. It's really important for academics to realise that they also are part of this process of decolonizing every single part of our living and our world, it's not just the storytellers, the practicing storytellers.
Sanjana: Totally, yeah. That, I think, goes back to what you had mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation, which is that storytelling is who we are as humans, and even if you're not doing it as a profession, just by virtue of being human you're a storyteller because you come home at the end of the day and you tell your friend or your significant other or your parent how your day was, and that's a story in itself. You know, any little thing like that is a story and we're doing it constantly, all day long, whether or not it's professional. The way that we always lean into storytelling shows that we're trying to connect with each other all the time, and we're trying to meet each other on that emotional level all the time. And so, if we can do that with science and with climate storytelling, then that's going to hopefully bring us closer to having everyone on board, showing everyone that there's room for you in this movement and we need you in this movement.
Agrita: Thank you so much Sanjana for this heart-warming conversation, it's truly being so inspiring and motivating, as a storyteller myself and I'm sure for the audience as well. You've already given us so much in this episode, but if you could give us just a single piece of advice on how to begin our journeys in reclaiming our roles as communicators and storytellers of the stories of the world, it would be great! So where can we really start to understand that this is a role that we've had for so long, we just need to reclaim it now?
Sanjana: That's a great question. I've been thinking a lot recently and I was just talking to some friends about this, this idea of finding your voice. I think it's often the first piece of advice that we get when we're pursuing any professional storytelling track, and I've been wondering recently if the advice we should really be giving and getting is to find your ears first. Find your ears and learn to listen and learn to learn, and then you can bring your voice into conversation with what you're learning. I think that that piece of advice would have helped me a lot because it would have made me feel like I don't need to pretend I know everything coming out of the gates because I don't, and it's unlikely that I will ever feel like I'm an expert in anything until I myself am elder, and that's the way it's supposed to be, right? Until then, we're learning, and it doesn't mean that what we have to say doesn't matter, it just means that we bring it into conversation with our communities, and we build community, and we focus on building community. Really seeing storytelling as a way to learn and to share what you're learning right? You be your conductor as a storyteller, and if you can, learn to listen. Then, you can figure out what information you want to conduct, and you can conduct it by adding your own voice to it, if that makes sense. So, I think that's something that I've been thinking a lot about recently, that I wish I'd had as a framework going into it [filmmaking] because it takes the pressure off and it makes it a really exciting process to be a student and to then, from there, start to figure out how can I take this information and digest it and present it in a way that my community and my audience will resonate with it?