TELEVISTA
All about girls and grit
AMITA MALIK

Nupur Basu, formerly with NDTV, has always been in search of social causes in her work. Certainly, her latest offering, entitled No country for young girls? has her insisting that the question mark is important. It shows that one has not given up. This film was shown on the BBC and was in English. But it needs to be made, or at least dubbed, in every Indian language and shown on every Indian channel. It follows, with powerful effect, the journey of a young mother with a young daughter who is again pregnant with triplets, all girls.

How society would react is predictable, as is her husband. But the young mother will not give them up, and her search for an answer takes her travelling to various parts of India and also gives us an insight into the problem of female foeticide. The film was preceded by flashes on the screen of male-female ratios, and one is disturbed to find that the worst affected is north India, with Delhi, the national Capital, among the worst. Surely a matter for national shame and an indication that the urban areas, with more so-called educated people, are the worst offenders in this respect. They are more affluent people.

Images of those affected by the September 13 bomb blasts in the Capital will remain etched in memory for long. Photo: PTI

The film pointedly begins with a shot of the Taj Mahal. It will be remembered that Noor Jehan is said to have died of excessive child bearing and her memorial is probably the sign of repentance by her husband. As the young mother travels by rail all across the country, and many images float through her mind, all the questions and possible answers that the problem raises are gone through with thought and understanding. I would like to repeat that the film should be dubbed in all important Indian languages and shown all across the country on TV channels.

The dreadful happenings in Delhi have had us riveted to the small screen, with one horrific image after the other following with high speed. Pictures of those affected by the Saturday evening bomb blasts in the Capital will remain etched in the mind for a long time. Only the acts of human kindness and occasional heroism offered some consolation.

The most moving of all were pictures of young children affected by the cruel hand of fate. Pictures abound of a child on the lap of a young dead mother, or sitting scared on a trolley on which his severely injured father is being wheeled into an ICU cabin.

But if it is children who make us feel worst, it is also a child who has become a hero. Twelve-year-old Rohit (name changed) has understandably been taken into police protection because he actually saw a package being put into a garbage bin, which exploded soon after. He will probably be able to recognise the miscreants, which is why he is with the police, to his grandmother’s dismay. "He is only 11, an orphan, and he will be so scared."

There is so much grief to see on the small screen that I deliberately started this column with a comparatively cheerful note on the girl child. The flash about where would the world be without women, in bright red, has not
come a moment too soon. One already knows what has happened to parts of Haryana where there are not enough women to become the brides of local men. They actually had to send for brides from Kerala. Intriguingly, the first such bride to come from Kerala has set herself up as an agent to help get brides from Kerala for men in Haryana.

Equally puzzling is the fact that the women of Kerala, having been short of bridegrooms forsome years, are so happy to be married in the North that they have adapted admirably to the local language and customs. Their newly adopted north Indian families are grateful to them for keeping their homes scrupulously clean. Indeed, ladies from the South make admirable housewives.