Miscellaneous
Tulku ji is an absolute people magnet. He loves to be around people, and people get drawn to him. Imagine a slight mix between the screen personas of dev anand and rajesh khanna. Total charmer. Tulku ji grew up in the village of lari in the spiti valley. Tulku is a name given to him by the people, as it means llama of the highest order. He is a retired water pump operator and a farmer. As a child he used to go to manali to study. This meant a 7 day trek, as there were no roads. One of his fondest memories is of having acted in a hindi film 'boond jo ban gaye moti' (the drops that became pearls). He along with some 15 other children were chosen to act for a song sequence in the film, in which jeetendra sings (well actually mukesh does) yeh kaun chitrakaar hai (who is this artist). Tulku ji had a hard time convincing his family that he is actually in the film. A few months before we met him, a friend of his managed to get his hands on a videocassette after serious searching and string pulling. Feels terrible that we found it so quickly on youtube. But here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9b63nSt9jY Tulku ji is one of the last living exponents of the local instruments kokpo (which you see in the video) and the piang (which you can see in our 17 minute film). During the winter months the valley gets fully snowed in. at this time the locals stay at home and party. All birthdays, weddings, and functions happen at this time. At this time, tulku ji goes from village to village teaching and inspiring people to learn their music. The instruments and the folk songs are slowly finding their way back into the communities. Just before we filmed this, he fished this grey coat he is wearing out of his bag. How often do we get to wear our traditional clothes anyway? Besides it will look better in your video. This was filmed in zion cafe in tabo. the owner of the cafe is a student of tulku ji. the wall paintings are all done by tourists. during the four hours we filmed that day, about 25 different people walked in when they heard tulku ji, and joined in on the songs. FRIDAY RELEASE is an endeavour to share raw footage from the u-ra-mi-li project. We'd like to give you a sample of the kind of stories we have and are looking for; some of these stories may make their way into the final film, others won't. Do tell us what you like, what you don't, what links you see between different kinds of music or visuals, what you've seen before, or what the clip reminds you of. To know more about the u-ra-mi-li project or to contribute, see www.uramili.in