By Nageshwar Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, March 25, 2015   :

Once upon a justice system, in another world, another time, trials began at sunup and ended at sundown. Today, an average case can take years.

This is the subtle difference between justice in ancient time and this new millennium.

No wonder, by highlighting this bitter truth, celebrated film director of Bhukha fame Sabyasachi Mohapatra’s Odia film ‘Aadim Vichar’ (The Ancient Justice), has bagged Best Odiya Feature Film in the 62nd National Award. The awards were announced by the Directorate of Film Festivals on Tuesday.

And not surprisingly, an Odia feature film got the National Award in the category after a gap of nearly nine years. The last Odia film had got the award was in 2006 for ‘Puja Paine Phulatie’, directed by Gadadhar Puty.

Incidentally, the Directorate of Film Festivals [DFF] had not selected any Odia films from 2007 to 2013 as the socially-relevant original script in Odia films was conspicuous by its absence.

‘Aadim Vichar’ was selected for the award for its vibrant portrayal of a tribal community whose enabling humanism shows a way out of pettiness and prejudice, according to DFF.

Penned by Sabyasachi’s Sahitya Academic Winner father, Kapileswar Prasad, ‘Aadim Vichar’ is based on a 100-year-old story of a righteous Kondh tribal elderly man who does not lose his humanistic spirit even after he was dragged to the court by his eldest son.

The protagonist of this story is Sukru Majhi, 84 years old tribal, who is always righteous, humanist and loving. His three married sons with two grand children led a very happy life till the entry of a village vaid (Ayurvedic Practitioner), a tout, who has an evil eye on the fertile land of tribals.

The Vaid cunningly drags the tribal into litigation and in return snatches their land from them. He, somehow, catches hold of Sukru’s eldest son, who files a case against his father for his property.

A strange thing happens in the court. Sukru surprises the judge making a statement that he will continue to stay with his eldest son [not biological] and his share of the land may be given to his litigant son. And the case gets solved in minutes.

Moved by Sukru’s humanistic and uncomplicated stance, the judge there and then delivers verdict in favour of Sukru. And that was the Ancient justice system, full of human values – a point Sabyasachi has tried to prove in this film.

Interestingly three generations of Mohapatra family got the act together to get his coveted national award. Sabyasachi’s son Kumar Cholagangadev made a debut in capturing the act through the camera.

“Aadim Vichar’ aims at creating awareness among people about the simple lifestyle of tribal communities. The tribal cultures are extremely rich with moral values. These innocent tribals are often exploited by people living in urban pockets,” Sabyasachi told Bizodisha.com.