Tarun Bhartiya

From Raiot Collective
September 1, 2025

From Kong Wanpynhun

You have always been there for the cause of the marginalized and voiceless.

From the struggle to fight for the decent and living wage of the unorganized workers, the struggle to fight for their right to food security, the knowledge behind the RTI campaign, the power to stand and speak for what is right and above all you taught us the true meaning of commitment.

You have been the inspiration that encouraged me to take bold steps and decisions in almost every fight. I’ll be missing you & your guidance Bah Tarun Bhartiya.

But your legacy and our fight for the marginalized will always continue.

From Anees

Dear Sir Tarun,

I remember when Sir Nathaniel told us you would be taking our classes. The passion with which he told us to make the most of every second we had to learn from you stuck with me; and within five minutes of your first class, I knew why.

Before you started teaching me, I honestly had no clue about the real meaning of an interview, no idea what a “documentary” meant. I thought I did, but oh was I wrong.

Sir, you equipped me with an ability to critically analyse the word “predominantly”, you made me realise all the jargon I would decorate my questions with. You helped me strip down a question to a question… A question that a human being can answer as a human being, and that is the greatest gift you could have given me.I remember watching Sir’s films, “La Mana”, “The Last Train in Nepal”, I remember how these films served as a prism, splitting the white light into shades and tints I never knew existed. Sir, you truly played a most major role in shaping my view of representation.

Our classes were cut short, CAA protests shut the city down, and we would rush to class and home until finally college closed. I remember trying to shoot the assignments Sir would give us. I’ll never forget his advice, repeat a mistake twice and it becomes style…..oh I tried to do something brave, and Sir did have a lot to say about my “style” in that assignment.

Right after that, Covid hit and we never ever got to actually have our full time with Sir Tarun.
Our final year was watered down from a 1 hour feature film to a five-minute video. I did my best, dissented all the way, I hope Sir Tarun liked it.

We lost touch, graduated. Then, in 2022 Sir got back in touch with me. I had the privilege of working alongside him on some videos, and man oh man Sir Tarun’s DIY lighting techniques, from soft box to backlight, stuck with me. “Follow. Follow. Follow. Follow” I never ever ever cut a video short too early and have captured such important moments simply because of that advice from Sir Tarun.

He gave me two books, encouraged me to pursue my dream of becoming a playwright.

On our last meeting in December 2024 during the Humanists meeting, Sir said something to me that gave me strength, so much strength and validation for who I am. Thank You Sir, for teaching me, for doing everything you did to show me what I was capable of, most importantly, thank you for inspiring me to be brave.

You will be missed, all the time.

Your student,
Anees.

From Tridip Mandal

Not fair Tarun bhaiyya, Itni bhi kya jaldi thi 🙁

We have lost one of the bravest and the most liberal voices from Northeast India. A filmmaker, poet, activist, photographer, and so much more— he spoke up and fought for those whose voices were rarely heard.

Almost two decades back I was a nobody—timid, lacking courage and confidence. He saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. He gave me the belief and encouragement to leave Shillong and get a foothold in national news media. Over the years, he remained a constant source of support. He generously shared his rare and priceless footage for my documentaries, which went on to win many awards. Yet, not once did he seek recognition for himself, never reminding me that “the original idea was his.” That was Tarun Bhaiya for me—a man with a heart so big, it overflowed with kindness and generosity. Perhaps his heart could no longer handle so much goodness and warmth.

A photo he took hangs over the piano at our home, a little bit of Tarun remains with all of us.

From Rejaz M Sheeba Sydeek

It is with immense shock and grief that I am writing this. I still cannot accept it. Comrade Tarun Bhartiya has passed away due to cardiac arrest.

I met Tarun Bhartiya, a National and International award-winning filmmaker, poet, photographer, and a dear political activist, in Shillong, Meghalaya, in 2022.

In 2015, He returned his National Award which he received in 2009 for Best Editing (Non-feature category) for “In Camera” in protest against the state fascism.

He stood by us when we faced a racist attack in Shillong. He accompanied me to the hospital and the police station. Before I left Shillong, I visited his house, where he and his wife, Comrade Angela, showered us with love and food.

I stayed in regular contact with him. I was supposed to meet him at the Wayanad Literature Festival in Wayanad, Kerala, in December 2024, where he was attending as a guest. His postcards were displayed and discussion was there talking about Pains and Pleasures of Small Town Photography.

He called me, asking me to come, but I couldn’t meet him due to personal inconvenience. He even brought tea leaves for my family but had to return with them because I couldn’t meet him. I assured him we would meet next time. I deeply regret not meeting you, Comrade.

I remember him recommending that I watch the documentary on Kashmir, “Jashn-e-Azadi”, for which he worked as the editor. When art is being used as a propaganda tool of the state, people like Tarun, who use art as a form of resistance against fascism, will be remembered. His death is definitely a loss for the people.

Rest in power, Comrade Tarun.

Comrade Tarun was the co-scriptwriter and editor of the documentary Red Ant Dream, which is based on the revolutionary Maoist movement in India led by CPI (Maoist).

From Baniakynmaw Shanpru

2002, the first time I met you!

When the entire class wished you Good Afternoon, Sir. You dismissed us right away. Don’t call me Sir. I am Tarun.

Leit suk bad shong suk ha Dwar U Blei, Tarun

From Rahul Banerjee

The untimely death of an anarchist. India has lost one of its foremost practising anarchists in Tarun Bhartiya to a totally unexpected heart attack. He actively promoted the rich communitarian culture, livelihoods and struggles of the indigenous people of the Northeast through his seminal documentary films, photography, poetry and journalism. He also ventured into documenting People’s resistance across the country from Kashmir to Bastar in collaboration with other activist filmmakers. Along with his wife Angela Rangad who leads the movement for workers’ rights in Meghalaya, he contributed substantially to economic justice there. The webzine Raiot set up and edited by him not only provided a unique view into the Northeast but also had theoretical pieces that delved deep into a multitude of philosophical, sociological, economic and political issues.

I have known him only through FB but that friendship has been a very enriching one because of his uncompromising anarchism which was built on the twin foundations of a deep theoretical study of classic anarchist texts and engagement with the down to earth communitarian knowledge of the indigenous peoples of the Northeast.

A solid anti-statist voice for socioeconomic and ecological justice is no more and will be deeply missed at a time when it was most needed. He is survived by his wife Angela, daughter Abia and twin sons Kyntang and Maian. Heartfelt condolences and strength to them in this time of irreparable loss.

From Jerry Pyrtuh

I Imagined a Window
For Tarun

After the news of your death arrived, I imagined a window – most simple in its architecture, blue or green or bluish green, fit for an old but resilient Assam-type house somewhere in Shillong. At first, I was ashamed that my memories culminated in such an obvious symbol. It grew bolder, however, when I was reminded of a portrait where your body is affixed to a Yashica Mat-124 G camera. The image is simple and direct in its presentation of a man steeped in the labour of seeing the world against its sanctioned posters.

In On Photography, Susan Sontag writes, “…the camera’s rendering of reality must always hide more than it discloses.” I like to think that you went against Sontag’s premonition with all your might by taming the camera to bend to the logics of disclosure. After all, to you, the camera was the window for your curious eye. You laid bare the rot and ruins of an ugly world. What you exposed gave us courage to dream of a future on our side. The camera was your way of sharpening our vision. When I first met you as a twenty-one-year-old who admired your politics and work, we spoke about every touristy photograph published by the Government of Meghalaya. Your lesson- Mind the truth outside the frame. This to say, so much of it is in being an active witness, a task you relentlessly demonstrated.

There was no one else who was as good in the ways of seeing as you were, and I do not mean only that which is captured in film. You saw so much, and you did so for those of us who see so little. I cannot imagine how heavy a burden this must have been. You even saw more than we could see in ourselves. Like when you found those of us who are at odds with a society overwhelmed by the horse-manure of money and ‘respectability’ (an enemy opposed by the principles of your lived life). In a style that is distinctly yours, you collected us: the oppressed, the dreamers, the radicals, the rascals, and what not. I do not think you knew this because you would never give yourself this much credit, but you opened the gates to the forbidden place that conceals our courage and audacity. I count myself as one of the people whom you gave this gift to, and there are plenty and there shall be more.

In your eyes, the world was work. The work is endless. It was motioned by a radical selflessness, that which can be called by another name as love. This was evident in your relationships, full of care and compassion as it stretched out from the dpei of your home. But also, in your unabashed sense of clarity, your fierce critiques, your exposure of the troubles under our feet, your humor, your rage, your willingness to call out (Remember? MLAs and their soft sensitive VIP behinds? So sensitive they must always be seated on a couch instead of the hard wood of a common man’s bench. ‘Abolish the couch!’, you said). The work is hard because you dare us to never accept things as they are. The work is harder because it is what we need to do when we believe in life.

You always possessed language so well. This was your other tool for work. You hated to be called an artist because you could not stand to be taken that seriously, and everyone already calls you a poet, so I would call you a construction worker instead (the same name that defines the work of my own father). I know it takes the genius of a labourer to understand what you refer to as the materiality of thought. Beauty is a consequence of struggle, of what we achieve when we build something out of imagination. Your works and words will continue to be the materials of our dreams and their realities. So you leave us here, in a place where every trace of you stacks itself up into an elementary technology that offers vision and air. It takes your great thoughts to build this window that opens to the other side of the world. So many of us, outsiders-insiders, congregate here as we still wait for you to point.

From Malayanil

I only knew of Tarun Bhartiya as photographer and filmmaker, capturing the essence of his beloved Shillong in its daily life. Then he became a friend of a friend, someone whose stories and the stories about him I deeply admired and loved listening to.Tarun was Shillong’s best friend—city’s chronicler whose love for its streets, people, and spirit was infectious.

In 2016, Tarun reached out to me and published something I wrote on Raiot, his webzine—a platform that reflected his relentless commitment to justice, creativity, and truth. That’s when I began to know Tarun beyond his photographs. He was a poet, an activist, a translator, a father, a husband, and above all, a lover of two places that shaped him—Meghalaya and Bihar.

A a man of both words and images – he had a rare gift of making the seemingly insignificant profound, and through his lens and his prose, he showed us the beauty and the work still left to do in the world. Through his stories, Shillong came alive as if it were a long-lost friend—familiar yet deeply missed.

Today, Shillong has lost its best friend, and the world has lost a rare find. Since I heard the terrible news, I can only think of his love for family, for community, for justice, and for life itself. He was a walking masterclass on parenting, activism, and the delicate balance between personal and political commitments. He showed us how to live fully present, never absent in the causes he championed or the lives he touched.

Once, when he read a letter I wrote to my father, he said he hoped his children would write something like that for him when they grew older. In the last decade, through Facebook, we watched his children grow, and today my heart aches for them. I hope they find comfort in the extraordinary legacy their father has left behind—a legacy of love, resistance, and boundless creativity.

Missing Tarun deeply today, and regretting not being able to meet him in Shillong in 2019 when I had the chance. His absence is an irreparable loss, not just for his family or for Shillong, but for everyone who was touched by his work and his being.Tarun Bhartiya will be missed, but his spirit will remain—etched in the streets of Shillong, in the words he wrote and translated, and in the lives he inspired. Rest in power, Tarun. You made the world brighter and more hopeful.

From Solus Fide

One of Shillong’s most vocal proponent of Marxist ideology has passed away. May his soul rest in peace.

I first came upon the name Tarun Bhartiya when I chanced upon a Facebook group called Shillong Humanists. It was a group that had, what seems to me, to be sacrilegious posts against Christianity and religion in general. I joined the group under an alias and debated him there. Like a burning candle, the debates were fiery but it ended as soon as it began, lasting for a few days.

I met him once on the 4th of October, 2024, on the day of our public hearing before the Expert Committee on the Meghalaya State Reservation Policy and we talked for a few minutes. He was polite.

May God watch over the departed soul, and over his bereaved family, at this time.

From Nabina Das

Heartfelt tributes have poured in for friend and disruptor Tarun Bhartiya. Goes without saying, we’re all still in shock. Activism, art, photography, pub crawl, Angela and Tarun’s homestay for a longish wrting sabbatical…didn’t we just discuss this the other day?? Then suddenly the guy is gone, at mere 54.

As a minor disruptor myself, I mentioned to him that the breath-taking photos of his beloved Meghalaya were a bit too stylised for my personal liking. He accepted it. Yet, I truly appreciated them, the subject, the treatment, the attachment. Some of my favourites from his Unaddressed Postcards. That’s the address he always will be at.

From The Northeast India AV Archive Team

It has been over a week since the passing of Tarun Bhartiya, a loss that has left a profound void in the hearts of many. Known widely as a renowned filmmaker, activist, and writer, Tarun Bhartiya was also a stalwart teacher to the Department of Mass Media, St. Anthony’s College. Even after formally stepping away from teaching, he remained a close friend and mentor to the department, continuing to inspire and guide us with his wisdom and generosity.

In 2018, he introduced us to Yui Nakamura San, Senior Program Officer at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF), Japan—a meeting that proved pivotal in the eventual establishment of The Northeast India AV Archive. As a committed founding member, Bah Tarun remained deeply involved with the archive, serving as a trusted advisor on numerous projects. His boundless knowledge earned him the affectionate nickname ‘Encyclopaedia’ within the office, as his insights greatly enriched our work. His personal collection of documentary films, newsreels, music videos, archival photographs, and regional footage played a crucial role in shaping the foundation of the archive’s collections.

We are deeply grateful for the indelible mark he has left on our lives and work. Dear Bah Tarun, thank you for your invaluable contributions, your mentorship, and your friendship. Your legacy will continue through your trailblazing work and the cherished memories we hold of you.

Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family during this difficult time. May you find strength and comfort in knowing how deeply he was respected and loved by all who had the privilege of knowing him.

Until we meet again, Bah T.

From Kasturi Basu

Unbearable, sudden news from Shillong. Our friend, Tarun Bhartiya is no more. A heart attack took him down. If a person so sharp, so full of life, conviction, and energy can go so suddenly like this, I don’t know how to make sense of life. Just the previous Sunday, we all chatted with him for over four hours at the political documentary workshop. We were eagerly waiting for his class again this evening, and he is no more!

A fantastic photographer, one of our finest documentary editors, a poet and filmmaker, political activist, and many things more, our argumentative and extremely well read Tarun was a rare person with whom you could disagree and have tooth and nail political fights without losing any warmth or respect mutually.

My deepest condolences for Angela, and for Tarun’s children… he really always so proudly rooted for you! As for all of Tarun’s friends, how to process this heartbreak!

What a cruel winter!

From Lapdiang Syiem

For Tarun… 💔
Thank you for this poem and for this tree. ❤ Thank you for the life you shared with us. Rest in peace Bah. ♥

What Kind of Times Are These
BY ADRIENNE RICH
(Sent to me on 5th Oct 2023)

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.

From Mritunjay Kumar

Tarun Bhartiya. As per people close to him, he had two back-to-back heart attacks last night, one in the hospital in Shillong. He passed away about an hour ago.

Tarun, in his FB bio, described himself as a “cussed middle-aged maithil maxist based in Shillong. Film, photo, poetry. Homemaker otherwise”.

My introduction to Tarun was as a photographer and editor. Some of his films are seminal in their own right — Jashn-e-Azadi, Red Ant Dream, In Camera — to name a few. A fierce voice of reason and human rights, Tarun spoke equally against all kinds of inequality and oppression. He was part of civil society in Shillong and beyond…calling out the radicalisation and oppression, irrespective of the caste, religion or organisational affiliation of the people/organisations in question.

The last time we ‘met’ was during an online workshop last week. Today, we were supposed to meet again. Now, we can’t. But we shall keep meeting you Tarun, through your writings, films and pictures.

Rest in peace, Comrade.

From Arundhati Ghosh

Tarun Bhartiya passed away. Our friendship wasn’t deep or for a long period, rather it was serious, sincere, comradish. I met him at his home in Shillong where he cooked awesome food for us and we raged against all types of right-wing. His food, like his politics, was sharp, unambiguous. His photographs, unlike his food, weren’t always easy to comprehend. I have a wall breathing with some. I loved his poems, was irritated that he did not write enough. But his world was so many things and so much that he was brilliant at – writing, photographing, making films, editing, mobilising – how could he do just one thing! I don’t know exactly in how many ways I will miss his lightful presence in my life, but I understand this will take time to process. Such a loss to the world, such a terrible loss. Love and strength to Angela, the children, his family. This is hard.

From Natasha Badhwar

I was sitting with my nephew, supporting him to write essays for his college entrance submissions, when I picked up my phone and checked it for new notifications. I tapped on the apps on the home screen and suddenly stopped breathing. There were status messages on Facebook by people mentioning Tarun Bhartiya and expressing grief and shock. Oh god no.

Tarun was a year junior to me in the MA program at the Mass Communication Research Centre in Jamia Millia Islamia University. There were many interesting people in his batch and mine, and we were always simultaneously collaborating, conflicting, and entertaining each other. I don’t know if he knew of me then, but I had heard stories of Tarun – the undergrad from KMC who had run off to Ayodhya, who had tried his hand at being a rickshaw puller. At that age, the purported commies and feminists among the students around me confused me. I couldn’t tell how much was performance and how much was influenced by lived experience. I wasn’t sure of myself either. Wanting to become so many things, but disassociated from the processes.

We met each other properly when Tarun joined NDTV as an editor one year after I had joined as a cameraperson and an editor. Tarun seemed to me to be brash, provocative, and opinionated. He was hugely talented and brought fearless, original ideas to everything he touched. He became popular and soon had a dedicated fan club. He carved a space for himself without apology.

I was still very quiet, and hadn’t found my voice yet. Yet we recognized something in each other. Behind the veneer of his confidence was a vulnerability. A desire to belong, to be accepted, but on his own fierce terms. Behind my quiet facade was a steely resolve. I knew how to let my work speak for me. Both of us were drawn to stories that reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary, quiet moments that speak volumes, emotions expressed by the direction of the light in a frame. We had chosen film and video as our first medium of expression. We would write later – poetry and personal histories.

Tarun and I met again in the early 2000s when the inevitable creative and political compromises of news television had tired us out. I was on a sabbatical and was part of a team of media practitioners teaching an access training course in documentary film-making in Bhilai, Chhattisgarh. When we needed a video editor to join our training efforts, I thought of Tarun and sent him an email. He agreed and brought all his humour, charm and organic confidence in storytelling to our course. There is a cohort of filmmakers in Chhattisgarh who still remember and revere “Tarun Bhaiya”. Tarun’s sudden passing made all of us reconnect and remember stories from those formative years.

It is returning to Shillong – the city he had spent his childhood years in – and finding love and solidarity with Angela that finally brought Tarun back to himself. Tarun needed to be at a distance from the noise to truly participate in all the work that he was deeply interested in. Raising Abia, Maian and Kyntang and supporting Angela in her work rejuvenated in him the purest form of creative energy. He had walked away from the petty competitions and one-upmanship that deplete us steadily, making every success seem hollow. He had chosen freedom and responsibility in the best way he knew.

The activist in Tarun was perfectly complemented by the lover in him. By choosing an everyday life embedded with moments of love, joy, and peace, Tarun exemplified what true resistance can look like. He was gifted at everything he chose to do – editing, photography, making films, poetry, cooking, loving, caring.

As we found the world around us crumbling under the weight of authoritarianism and hate for the marginalized, Tarun became more and more committed to documenting harsh truths and unmistakable beauty. He began to write and share his poetry. He exhibited his photographs. His trademark humour and unfiltered insights remained fresh and fearless.

At Tarun Bhartiya’s memorial in Jawahar Bhawan in New Delhi, I found my voice breaking even as I soaked in the warmth and love everyone was expressing. Ravish Kumar, also our friend from the NDTV of the mid-1990s, called him “a diamond who had left us forever.”

“It may sound inappropriate to say this, but Tarun makes me feel safe about dying,” I said on stage. “Tarun lived a quiet life away from the limelight, yet his work and energy shone so bright that its influence is immeasurable. Watching the outpouring of love and tributes for Tarun makes me realize that one must not fear dying. Our work, our love, our friends – one’s legacy remains safe when one has lived with honesty and conviction. When one has extended oneself with generosity.”

Tarun was a doer. An experimenter. A person free of boundaries, always ready to stretch himself for what he believed in. We all learnt many lessons just from being near him, and now we cannot refuse the final lesson he has left for us. Follow your own unique trail, do the work that guides you, and leave when you have to. Your love grows even stronger in those you leave behind, Tarun.

From Tipriti Kharbangar

The sky is crying in Shillong. Tarun Bhartiya, a new generation of freethinkers and real artists will not have a guiding voice and hand to guide their raw feelings. God speed comrade. You live on in us and in the society that you have been a beautiful part of. Rest in power Bah Tarun.

From Vistasp Hodiwalla

Tarun Bhartiya, that most empathetic soul, my wise and extremely affectionate FB friend for years now, and one whom I unfortunately never had the privilege of meeting in real life, is gone.

Our online friendships may perhaps seem less important on the surface; only because they don’t translate into deeper bonds that happen over time with physical interactions.

And yet, there are so many meaningful friendships I have made on fb which I hold close to my heart, for they have transcended the physical realm through the intimacy that comes by knowing someone through his or her humane attributes.

Tarun was profoundly kind, generous with his time, stood on the right side of every issue, and was always fearless in his expression. The Manipur crisis brought us much closer. Heartbroken as he was, he enhanced my understanding of this crisis for which I am very grateful.

This was his very last message to me on WhatsApp, not even a month ago. We were united in our grief at all times on the state of our country.

“True sadness at a country that I loved to death – I ran back as soon as possible from saat samundar paar because I always thought its people are the friends with whom you could hang out – but now they frighten me.”

The screenshot I share is one of Tarun’s poems written when Manipur was being ravaged even as an insensitive establishment looked away.

Go in peace my dear friend. Or go out raging, as you would probably prefer to. We will miss you deeply either way.

From Gerry Troyna

I was in shock and greatly saddened to hear that my friend and colleague Tarun Bhartiya – filmmaker, poet and social activist, and an altogether great guy – had passed away and has truly created a void in the lives of all who knew him. I first came to India in 1979 – years after my hippy-era peers, as a director of a ground breaking series Great Railway Journeys of the World. At this time India was encouraging the population to embrace some western values and yet remain committed to its long established, successful, unique and traditional culture. Against this background I first met Tarun Bhartiya.

After a decade at the BBC as a documentary director and producer I ventured into the freelance world with an ambitious Indian project. It was based around the annual phenomenon of the MONSOON and would feature the Indian Railway as a rolling narrative throughout the 90 minute film. I heard of Tarun Bhartiya as a young and talented cameraman – and as I discovered – he was much much more –
best defined as a 21st century renaissance man! He was a poet, linguist, publisher, intellectual, filmmaker, photographer and socialist – and an altogether good human being.

Whereas the monsoon rains were unreliable in much of India, in Assam, the rains came each year – with alarming consistency. This was Tarun’s territory and he clearly knew it like the back of his hand. He recruited a team of local researchers, assistants and friends and they set about structuring a narrative. He immediately understood my idea of storytelling, of structure and the need for relatable characters – with their developing stories running parallel with the story of the railway and the monsoon Tarun and his team managed to discover characters who worked for – or relied on – the Indian Railway for a living. Everyone trusted him implicitly – from senior managers and drivers, to hawkers and station runaways., The completed film Monsoon Railway was an international success! As our relationship developed over the next twenty years and we made numerous films together – his camera and directing talents were exceptional. Our numerous Indian documentary series have been repeated many many times across the world and won several national awards – and Tarun’s contribution to their success is undeniably apparent for all to see. His infectious humour and unparalleled ability to communicate sympathetically with everyone – his crew, a beggar or a Maharaja – was his secret talent. The editing process was based in my house so Tarun would stay with us – as our guest – for 3 months for each for each film. So we got to know each other very well – and my family too…we all enjoyed his company. I last saw Tarun on an overnight trip to Leeds in September last year. It was a typical surprise visit, and he hadn’t changed at all. Still the same interesting entertaining well informed Tarun that we had grown to love and respect. I miss him as we all do.

From Moses Kharbithai

A powerhouse of inspiration, a passionate crusader for the rights of the struggling section of the community, a dedicated reader and mentor of progressive thoughts and movements in Meghalaya, an armour against fascism and its tenets in a tribal setting, a bridge between indigenous tribal movements and the outside world, a good pal to all critics and haters, is no more. A bolt from the blue to all those who have known him, been inspired by him, and emboldened by his passion and commitment. He will remain in the hearts of all of us forever. Rest in power, comrade Tarun Bhartiya. The struggle will not rest.

From Andrew May

The cartography of camaraderie: remembering Tarun Bhartiya

In June 2016 I opened a message from a stranger: “This is Tarun Bhartiya … I am a documentary filmmaker making a film for Khasi Jaintia Presbyterian Assembly on coming of the Gospel … How to get in touch with you?” When I let him know that I would be in Shillong in November that year, his reply was simple: “O great – we ought to meet”. When I got there, he emailed: “What are your plans for the sojourn?” This became a regular refrain on my subsequent visits — and whatever other official duties, research forays or other friendships took up my attention, there would also be time with Tarun. Talking at home across the kitchen table in Lumpangad; more often talking and walking round the highways and byways of the Shillong he knew and loved. On first making his acquaintance, he was busy with QUEEN-SIZE, a choreographic response hosted by RAIOT to section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises homosexuality in India. But he still made time to meet. “Thanks for an enlightening encounter”, he wrote afterwards.

He shot an interview with me for his film, and we spoke about my book on Thomas Jones and the Welsh mission. “Couldn’t really tell you how much I have enjoyed your book both for its stance as well as simple pleasures of historical discovery in its old sense”. We connected immediately – perhaps because we both had a certain insider/outsider status in the social hierarchy; perhaps because he saw, with that sustained twinkle in his eye, a partner in the crime of critique (“This positivist notion of history is getting too much where the narrative lives on the disjunct between the rational mission and trapped between oral culture native – it is post colonialism of an ahistorical kind”); perhaps because Tarun’s essential good grace simply made strangers feel welcome. Aside from the pandemic years, I caught up with him annually in Shillong. He asked me to write a piece on “How to (not to) remember Thomas Jones” for RAIOT, and started regularly sending me titbits for my next book on Shillong. I couldn’t believe how generous he and Angela were in welcoming a stranger into their home; here I was, an academic historian from a faraway place, preoccupied with the work of the mind when they were so busy dealing with the inequalities of the real world.

But Tarun constantly reminded us all that the head and the heart, art and science, abstraction and activism, were all intimately connected in the humanistic process, that we all had a different part to play. Tarun was also a master maven and connector of people: “putting you in touch”, he would often message me when there was someone he thought I should get to know. Another favourite response was ““Maybe we should collaborate”. And collaborate we did. We never got to do the anthology of writing on Shillong, but he was an important part of the British Library Endangered Archive digitisation project, as well as the more recent Digital Shillong online history project. We played the flaneur in Shillong like two boys skiving off from school on an adventure. It was our cartography of camaraderie, lifting lids, looking behind doors, overstepping thresholds, testing territories, with Tarun always inquisitive with his questions, curious with his camera, wide eyed in wonder when we rediscovered one or other trace of old Shillong in a cemetery, a bookshop, an old racetrack or a colonial-era bungalow. In mid-2020 he wrote: “Sending you a draft of a photobook I am trying to put together – would like to know your reactions and queries”. I recognised some of the images from our own peregrinations, was moved by his visual poetry, in awe of his creative and intellectual juxtapositions, and chuffed to be the subject of one of the images in “Niam/Faith/Hynñiewtrep”. Tarun always appreciated kindnesses, but gave out more than he received. “You know that many of the things I do in this place”, he wrote, “are informed by my cussed love for this place without the question of ‘credit’- this is something that people don’t get.”

Ten days ago, on 17 January, Tarun messaged: “Just thought to share that I got a book deal (basically a publisher) to publish the postcards as a book. If everything goes well the book should be out by October this year. Thank you for everything. Feeling a bit overwhelmed – suddenly my underground world of ambition and running away from the mainstream seems to be getting uncovered.” Now it is we who are overwhelmed, my dear Tarun. My deepest condolences are with Angela, Abia, Maiian and Kyntang. I have lost a brother, as others have lost a mentor, inspiration, collaborator and friend, but we will ensure that the light ever shines on your humanistic vision.

From Ben Zachariah

I met Tarun Bhartiya in Delhi in 1996. I think Shahana Bhattacharya introduced us. He sold me my first camera in Cambridge, not long afterwards. He – and his father – read my book manuscript and commented on it.
These are bare facts. That I cannot now drop him a line or start a random chat, as we used to, will take some processing on my part.
I’m sure we could have found a lot more to disagree on, had we tried. I’m sure I never doubted his integrity – a word that sounds hopelessly utopian now.
Thank you, comrade.

From Subhradip Ghosh

I never met Tarun Bhartiya but that does not mean I did not know him at all. On the contrary, I got to know him well enough through his wonderful, crafty, and often witty writings in this and other platforms. In the middle of cacophony of celebration which often looks staged, I cannot help sharing a poem written by Tarun that aptly portrays the state of affairs in the republic.

This was probably the last poem he shared, a day before his sudden demise. I feel like sharing this in honour of someone who personified the ideals which the republic was supposed to stand for but is drifting away more and more with every passing day.
Rest in power, Tarun.

I Will not Write Anything on Muslims II

I would only write on my cousin
Who understands new ways of being a Hindu daily
Rapist language which can also be called Hindi
A new word every night he builds in him
A history where there is only biryani
And some Ghalib Walib too
The other half who dreams of an emperor
In lazy days without fear
I don’t have to say anything on Muslims
Because I don’t even know that
They have anger or fear or both or
They laugh at my sudden shame
Their homes, history, laughter, bullying, love
Like this country after burning
I don’t want to ash their poetry.

From Iqbal Abhimanyu

Disjointed musings on what Tarun Bhartiya meant to me:

It was a brief and intense friendship. I was thrilled that someone so accomplished both in visual mediums and words(writing, translation) would take me seriously. Not only being just a call or message away for advice, but also seeking my opinion on his own work as well as the world in general.

His was the only tag on Facebook that never irked, because you knew he genuinely wanted to share, and the sharing was never one-sided.

During my time at Outlook, I shamelessly kept calling him from the dilapidated roof of AB-10, asking about poetry, sources on and from the Northeast, and sometimes dumping my frustrations in a job where I had had to hit the ground running.

I met him only once, at Press Club. In the company of Jitendra Kumar and Mahtab Alam. But it didn’t seem like it. The comfort and peace that meeting evokes is worth holding on to.

One project that he had proposed, was that we both write about our fathers, both of them socialists of a different ilk, and how we dealt (or didn’t deal) with their “legacies.”

His framed photos and a few postcards are the only modern art I own. Because it’s my most favourite and among the most accessible. Tarun made you believe that you could write too, you could take photos too. He was always downplaying his own brilliance, as if to say, come join me on this platform. And always questioning the platform(s) too.

He was among the few who made me realize that translation is valuable, it’s an art and a critical tool of engaging with our realities. To some extent he reminds me of Ashok Seksaria, the legendary editor-patron of writing from Kolkata, who inspired a generation of authors and activists.

Tarun’s Raiot was publishing both poems and political critique nobody else dared to.

A man who constantly played between identities. Being at the margins of the murderous nation-state, but also rightly questioning the alternative nationhoods, lest they become exclusionary and the very thing they were fighting against. He was, in short, what I aspire to be. Irreverent but sincere. A free spirit but a family man and a Shillong local to the hilt. Both rooted and liberated.

Go gently, friend, mentor. (You would have laughed off the second epithet).

From Mona Mishra

Difficult to process the unfair/random/cruel absence of Tarun Bhartiya.

I first met Tarun in 1990 when we were students at Delhi University. At that time we knew him as the generous organiser, an attractive street theatre actor, entertainingly combative conversationalist, and mostly, a splendid singer of protest songs, fist-in-the-air activist.

Later, he happened to start studying in Jamia film school, where among other things, we together painted the walls of the outdoor canteen which was a scrumptious haven for us. And then a few years later, I called him and said he had to edit a film for us. He was busy with another project, but when he heard the subject of the film, he said a big yes and spent the next month with us.

And we cannot forget that he was a superb cook:) – recall the luscious beef curry that he rustled up with very few ingredients in our modest kitchen.

From Vidyanand Jha

Last week Tarunji passed away. Rather suddenly, quite abruptly. And I am still trying to process the sense of loss.

We came into contact around ten years back. At that time it didn’t matter that I was some years older to him. But now with his departure that is another point of grief.

Around a decade back, while walking on Shillong roads, I photographed a Lennon graffiti and made a FB post about it. He made a comment. And then we became friends. I taught a course on Qualitative Research Methods to doctoral students at IIM Shillong for some cycles and thus visited Shillong in that period. And I got to spend time with Tarunji. Later, we would talk over phone. And he was one of the regular persons to take note of my FB posts.

In Maithili we use a term, “अप्पन लोक”, person of one’s own ilk, Tarunji was one such person. We shared our interest in a just society, in poetry and also we shared our mother tongue. Even before I knew him, I knew about his father, Late M N Karn, the sociologist. We had common acquaintances and I had met him also perhaps twice. So in the beginning, Tarunji was more of Karnji’s son and gradually he became a friend in his own right.

In retrospect, Tarunji was an outsider at multiple levels, even though he was a Shillong kid, as he had spent some of his formative years there when his father used to work at NEHU and was also married to a Shillong person, and no I later called Angela Bauasin, the word meant for a daughter in law in Maithili, he remained a Maithil. Observing Maithil customs with a Shillong twist. Even within the Maithil linguistic commmunity, he, like me was an outsider. An intense love for the mother tongue, a heroic effort to stick to the Maithil identity that is getting subsumed due to many homogenising processes and yet we were unlike the majority of Maithils with a very different idea of Maithil cosmology. In fact one of the last poems of mine that he was trying to translate had a line

“Am I just another creature on this planet
Living in these strange times
Yet not if these times? “

That was perhaps the sense which converted Tarunji into an “अप्पन लोक” for me.

Yet he was very different. Full of energy and full of varied interests. Almost like a renaissance person in our times. Awarded film maker. I trip on his movie made on the Jayanar Janakpur narrow gauge railway line, as that is one of the only contemporary documentaries giving a glimpse of Mithila. A great black and white photographer. Poet. Editor. A person in love with life.

I once called him to my Management of Creativity class at IIM Calcutta to talk about his journey as a creative being. More than once he sent me half done translations of my poems into English that he felt he should still work on. I had asked him to write few words for my fourth book of poems. He had not only agreed, also sent me a colour photograph taken by him in Madhubani that he thought I should use on the cover.

Now, any photograph I see anywhere that reminds me of him. He remains within me. I hope his mother, Angela Bauasin, and the children shall have the strength to bear this truly irreparable loss.

From Janice Pariat

For Tarun

In my backpack is a small plastic canister that has travelled with me for many years. My mum slipped it into my hand before a long journey, possibly from Shillong to Delhi, or further. The canister holds a small handful of red rice, khao Khasi, so my travels may be safe and I may return home safely. It’s what the Khasis believe—that rice, commonplace and ordinary, carries the power of the earth where it is grown, and will lead you back to where you belong. The canister has been with me since. I took it out yesterday because I‘ve been thinking of home a lot lately. At first because I missed it—the blue skies, kitty, mum and dad, the clean air, the forests—and then because we lost, most suddenly, a mentor and a friend. Poet, activist, filmmaker, Tarun Bhartiya.

How to mark this incommensurable loss over this long distance? I rewatched my favourite of his works—a “song cycle” of short documentaries he’d directed in 2015, capturing how the people of our hills “sing their lives”, how “folk” music, though not often portrayed so, is always political, singing of the here and now, singing to power, to life. The cycle opens with a “shoh kba” or threshing song, that emerges with the rhythmic pounding of paddy during harvest season in a small village in Ri Bhoi. Later, in one of the other shorts, I learn that rice came to the Khasis because he was found lost in a forest, and he requests the hills-people for stewardwardship and in return rice would nurture, nourish, and strengthen our people. When I’d interviewed Tarun for a piece I was writing on these documentaries he’d told me how he hadn’t made many films about Meghalaya because he felt that due to his “Maithilness” (being a dkhar, ‘outsider’ in Khasi) and struggle to situate this “strangeness” he needed to first “get into the rhythm of the place”. With the “song cycle” he did so with much aplomb, bringing to the series his informal, intimate style, and characteristic irreverence and lightness of touch.

But in all honesty, I hadn’t ever met anyone from Shillong, then and now, who’d gotten “into the rhythm of the place” as much as Tarun did. How much he loved our beautiful little ramshackle town. Her complicated multi-ethnic roots, her resilient working-class stories, her protesting against climate change youth, her old cemeteries, her old markets, her streets. And how much he loved these hills. Their long, entangled histories, with the plains, with the world. If I were there to see Tarun off, there is, if permitted, only one thing I would have liked to slip into his hand. This canister of red rice, khao Khasi. To say that the place where this is grown loved you too, with all her heart. Go safely. This will lead you back to where you belong.

Several tributes were published on other platforms. You can read them in the links below:

Ajay Gudavarthy – Tarun Bhartiya’s Anarchy Against the Ordinary | OBITUARY
Sanjay Barbora – Tarun Bhartiya (1970-2025): The bird that flew the coop
The Wire Staff – Poet, Filmmaker And Activist Tarun Bhartiya Passes Away; His Art Lives on – The Wire
Ranjan Palit – ‘A warm, lovely person who was passionate about so many things’ – Meghalaya Monitor
Kyrsoibor Pyrtuh – Tarun Bhartiya: The Outsider Who Became Shillong’s Cultural Interpreter – Frontline
Naya Path – दोस्ती के तारामंडल का एक और तारा टूट गया / संजय जोशी – Naya Path
Kabir Deb – Dancing To The Revolution | A Comrade’s Diary | Outlook India
Bhogtoram Mawroh – Tarun Bhartiya: A legacy of art, activism, and humanity – Meghalaya Monitor
The Shillong Times – Noted filmmaker Tarun Bhartiya passes away | The Shillong Times
Maktoob Staff – A rebel in art and spirit; Tarun Bhartiya passes away at 54
Jinee Lokaneeta – Reminiscing College Days with my Comrade-in-Arms, Tarun Bhartiya – The Wire
Nandini Ramachandran – For Tarun

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
M
m
g
h
7
Y
C
F
Enter the code without spaces.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.