None thought it fit to consult the 16-year-old nor know her mind for her take on a situation she would soon find herself in and the responsibility she had to shoulder. Here then was a marriage decided by elders that was simply destined towards divorce and recriminations. Trying to come to terms with her agonising past, that cruelly robbed her of a happy blossoming into a young, ambitious woman full of dreams and ambitions. Further, seeking to probe the reasons leading to her early marriage is documentary film-maker Chandra Siddan’s Remembrance of Things Present.

Turning the spotlight on each of her elders from her parents to relatives including her former husband, Chandra, now highly educated, widely travelled, worldly-wise and also newly married, documents her painful and unforgiving past, even as she captures various vignettes of  buzzing life in her hometown Bengalooru. Her return to India, on a cathartic voyage of discovery and to put her past in perspective, also sees her reuniting with her teenaged daughter Smruthi. In a searing and severe indictment of a society and its people for whom championing social mores rules prime over all other individual concerns, Chandra documents her own real life saga as a mirror for society to reflect and mull upon. Vimochana, in association with Bangalore Film Society is screening the over an hour-long documentary at 3.30 pm on Wednesday, January 23, at 33/1-9, Thyagaraj Layout, Jaibharath Nagar, MS Nagar PO. Incidentally, Chandra Siddan will be presenting her film to the audience and take questions later on. For details call 25493 705 / 25492 774 / 25492 779 / 9886213516.

Subrahmanyan Viswanath