The intimate verité drama of the Miss India pageant’s rigourous beauty “bootcamp”
and the intense regime of a militant Hindu fundamentalist camp for young girls, Durga Vahini (the women’s wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad), leaves you questioning the realms of extremism. Are they extremes or just two sides of the same coin? Director Nisha Pahuja sees it as journeys from being at extreme ends to running parallel with each other. “These are women looking for empowerment and freedom, but the context is defined by men. There are two forms of nationalism playing out on the bodies of women,” says the 47-year-old film maker. The original germ of thought was rooted in the beauty pageant with the intention to incorporate the opposition and feminist groups. But soon the concept branched out to include the intriguing Durga Vahini camp. The end product took two years of research and shooting, but the period that challenged Pahuja’s Western feminist outlook was the month spent with the Miss India contestants and at the camp. Situated in a school outside Aurangabad, Pahuja and her team were the first camera crew to enter the Durga Vahini camp. Through lectures and physical combat training, the girls in the camp learn what it means to be good Hindu women and how to fight against Islam, Christianity and Western influences by any means necessary.
She encapsulates the 10-day experience
as ‘complicated, a multitude of
emotions, often conflicting’. She elaborates,
“A feisty little girl caught my attention
on the first day. She was sweet,
mischievous, and rebellious. She refused
to trade her jeans for salwars. But at
the end of ten days, she says one of
the most powerful lines in the film,
about fighting for Kashmir. It was mostly
sad seeing the transition in those ten
days with the girls losing their innocence.”
While the director was amazed at
the effects of constant brainwashing,
the military style training and the fear
instilled in young minds, she questions
the depth of such lessons.
“Not all the girls who undergo training
continue practicing what they have learnt
at camp. Some step out, question, and
forget, while some return to the camp.
It is in the latter case that such training
gets cemented,” she says.
Reminiscing over some of the chants
taught at the camp, the director is still
shocked. One such chant appears in the
trailer too, where young girls scream in
Hindi, “Ask for milk, we’ll give your rice
pudding. Ask for Kashmir, we’ll slit your
throats.”
A different type of bootcamp met
Pahuja and her team at the Miss India
training venue. Here bandooks (guns)
were replaced by botox.
“Very few contestants knew what was
happening to them. A few could see
the commodification, and accepted it.
And when you see it in that context, it
makes perfect sense,” she says.
What struck Pahuja at the end of the
one month and ten days spent with
these girls was how conservative they
were. The amount of skin shown or
covered had nothing to do with
‘progress’. “We judge people in superficial
ways. During the Miss India shoot,
one of the contestants said ‘there is no
such thing as rape, women are asking
for it’. My jaws dropped, but the camera
wasn’t rolling at the time, so we couldn’t
get it on tape,” she says.
The director, ironically, found filming
the fundamentalists far simpler than the
pageant world.
“It seemed like every time we were
making real progress with one of the
girls, she was suddenly whisked off
to hairstylists or for makeup or some
off-limits fitting session or other
event for the sponsors. It was a nightmare.
I knew I was missing out on
the process and some of the real
story,” she says.
The film also features Prachi’s parents
as well as Miss India winner Pooja
Chopra’s mother Neera who epitomises
strength to fight against the rampant
evil of female infanticide in India.
The film received a rather unexpected
response.
While a leading national English daily
blacklisted the film, the VHP was pleased
with the outcome (of course, only after
the initial resistance).
“The publication felt we had tarnished
the image of the Miss India contest, especially
with details such as contestants
being encouraged to take Botox shots.
VHP also wanted to shut us down. I received
threatening calls. We implored
them to watch the film first, and then
decide their action. They loved the film.
It is a non-judgemental, non-editorial
film,” says Pahuja, whose interest in
Indian politics grew tremendously as
she shot the film.
Born in Delhi, raised in Toronto, this
is Pahuja’s third film after Bollywood
Bound and Diamond Road.
Over the last two years, after the film
was first screened at the Tribeca Film
Festival, it has received more than twenty
awards at various film festivals around
the world.
Pahuja, however, admits she had to
be diplomatic at times.
“You have to sometimes protect your
subjects from themselves. A few may
not have the same beliefs in five years’
time. The film ends, life does not,” she
says.
