Sisters in sorrow

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Dowry deaths isn’t only a nightmare for married women, but the menace even haunts girls of marriageable age. The nuisance is still very much prevalent in the Indian society, just that it is changing its forms. Also, along with societal compulsions, there are legal loopholes which are keeping this pest alive.

Recently, India Habitat Centre hosted the screening of the film Teen Behenein (Three Sisters), an unreleased film by Kundan Shah, that tells the story of three sisters from a lower middle-class family in small-town India. The girls decide to kill themselves because their parents cannot afford their dowry.
“The seed of the story has been culled from a real-life incident which occurred in Kanpur circa 1988,” informs chief associate director, Shekhar Hattangadi, who has been travelling with the film to various festivals and educational institutions to talk about the issue of dowry.
“Abroad, there is a voracious curiosity about how the dowry system works in India. In Indian colleges, youths and in particular young unmarried female students throng to screenings because they clearly empathise with the theme,” says Shekhar, who has been a journalist and is presently teaching law.
To Shekhar, taking the film to college students and discussing their responses at post-screening sessions appears to be the best medium for furthering the cause.
“Interestingly biys come up with radically differing reactions to the film. I know some students who have wept during post-screening sessions recounting how their sisters and parents suffered because of dowry demands. And I also had one male student from IIT Delhi opposing the theme of the film (freedom to women as a means of doing away with dowry) because, according to him, society would turn ‘chaotic’ if ‘we gave these women any freedom’. Then, a middle-aged lady came up with some insightful comments as she said, ‘Whatever be an Indian woman’s educational accomplishments and her capability in terms of getting a job, our society has conditioned her into believing that her life and worth is validated only when and if she gets married. Without marriage, she sees herself as worthless’,” Shekhar narrates, pointing out that since the film has no Bollywood stars, it’s difficult to get publicity for the film and the cause it is crusading for.
Shekhar is also interested in issues like environmental hazards of overusing cell phones by individual consumers, and of installing cell towers in densely populated residential areas.
“The issue of the raw deal given to pedestrians in the development of our cities and towns is another issue that bothers me. We are becoming willing slaves to the car culture. We aren’t learning our lessons from the developed world, which invented and developed these petrol-powered vehicles,” he informs.
“Also important is the issue of spreading legal literacy and legal aid to the masses. It is a shameful blot on our so-called democratic polity that people have to bear all kinds of injustice in their everyday lives just because they cannot afford the legal fees required to fight for the redressal of their grievances,” he says.