Helen Hagen

I found the film a strong statement about the position of women in India who do not have an active marriage, and also women whose husbands die or leave them without adequate legal provision to be able to continue living in their previously shared accommodation. The chief protagonist has been abandoned by her her legal husband for many years while he works in Germany, seldom being in contact with her. She is a qualified nurse, but needs a paying companion in her flat, that has gas for cooking, but no electricity. She has been trapped in marriage by her father’s direction, but has no dignity of her own, as a woman alone. I won’t spoil the key point of the film by stating her one word reply to her husband when he eventually returns to India. The film needs to be ‘read’. Observe the situations, the conversations, the women’s predicaments.

A satire? Overturning every aspect of the story. An odd comedy?