Ripples under the Skin

February, 2011. In a small village of West Bengal, two young women in love with each other―Swapna and Sucheta―took their own lives, leaving a letter claiming love, life, recognition… a letter challenging violence, hate, invisibilization.

…and the unclaimed delves into the aftermath of Swapna and Shucheta’s deaths, as well as the social conditions that led to their choice. “The unclaimed” refers both to the fact that neither of their families came forward to claim their bodies, but also to the tenuous state of existence of queer and trans folks in India. Interviews with Swapna and Shucheta’s families and neighbours are interspersed with the stories of ordinary Indian queer and trans people, as well as activists and advocates, all of whom are dealing with their own experiences of the label “unclaimed”, while fiercely fighting for their rights to live and love.

Filmed over four years, Holy Rights relates the struggles of Safia—a deeply religious Muslim woman from Bhopal—against the patriarchal mindset of the interpreters of Sharia law, which she believes denies women within her community equality and justice. Safia joins a programme that trains women as Qazis—Muslim clerics, traditionally male, who administer the law. As she passes through uncharted territory, Safia faces the tensions that accompany the act of owning her own narrative. After several other women join the programme, the film examines the arbitrary nature of triple talaq (instant divorce by saying “talaq” thrice). It also documents the fight to break free from both patronising voices within Muslim women’s communities, and outside forces that seek to appropriate their movement for political gain.

The film tells the story of Loiya Ngamba, a nature lover who chanced upon an area in Punshilok in Langol hill range in Manipur and created a green space for the local communities. At a time when trees are cut down rampantly in the name of 'development', when 'civilisation', 'urbanisation' has come to mean building blocks of concrete, when forests are being cleared and sold off to corporate houses to usher in 'modernity', this film asks pertinent questions as it tells the story of reorienting man's relationship with nature and building a culture of peaceful coexistence.

Like Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbour, on a smaller but equally poignant scale, 3000 members of India's tiny Chinese community were incarcerated in an old POW camp for up to 4 years in the aftermath of the India-China war of 1962. Even children, expectant mothers and the elderly were not spared. Most people don't know about this tragic episode. There is no acknowledgment or apology either from the government to date. And yet, among those who suffered, the love for India and things Indian remain alongside the pain and hurt. It's a story that reminds us that history has a way of repeating itself. Again and again.

Bonnie is on the run again. He has been on the run from his family and sports fraternity since failing a 'sex test' before the Bangkok Asian Games in 1998. Born intersex, raised by poor, illiterate and confused parents as a girl named 'Bandana', s/he became one of the finest strikers of Indian Woman's football team in her/his short career. A sex reassignment surgery later transformed her/him to a man but left him without a home or a career. He left home, took up idol-making for a living.He met Swati, married soon but moved once again fearing social backlash. His fight to establish his identity, struggle for existence met by a sarcastic society yet to learn to take 'other genders' seriously.