Miss India UK’s documentary to showcase life of Gaddi Lohar community

Deana Uppal, Miss India UK, is in Rajasthan to direct and produce an in-depth documentary on the life of Gaddi Lohar community. The actress and business entrepreneur has spent the last year with the Gaddi community and found them interesting, intriguing people that are in need of a voice. She intends to show the facts and reality in her film to create awareness for the tribe, internationally.

“After researching and meeting the Gaddi Lohar community, I was shocked at the lifestyle they live, these people travel without a destination for work, they are completely cut off from the modern world, still living the same practices as centuries ago, but they are extremely kind and family oriented. The nomadic community is forgotten, people. Their history is no where in the textbooks even though their ancestors originate from the royal Maharana Pratap. Because they travel, they do not benefit from government support and live in severe poverty,” said Uppal.

The real-life film will attract more NGOs to support the Gaddi Lohars and Uppal herself plans to start a charitable trust. The film will participate in the biggest film festivals such as Cannes and San Sebastian film festival. Uppal says that she intends to help the community with the documentary.

“From a directors point of view, this film has been extremely difficult to shoot for many reasons. Firstly the Gaddi Lohar community do not like to mix with outsiders, so I had to spend a lot of time to just gain their trust. We were a small team shooting in very bad and unhygienic conditions across Rajasthan, However, this made me more determined to show their state to the world,” said Uppal.

Deana met all Rajasthan Ministers concerned with the development of this community and all of them including Rajender Yadav assured her all support for this initiative. She wants to help settle as many families as possible so they can benefit from the governments’ schemes.’

“There simple way of living can teach us all a humbling lesson,” added she.