Amitav Banerjee

'Silence' is a constant way of reconciliation for Ms. Leela Benare, accused and charged for an infanticide case. A warping tale of events reveals how silence is her only answer and that it can be more powerful than speech. The hegemonious patriarchy shuns her elopement with a man before marriage and condemns her existence as a blot on the brow of sacred motherhood, disregarding the fact she was carrying a child in her womb born out of wedlock. Benare overcomes her victimisation and was exonerated but the fiasco took a toll on her, at one point she even thought of commiting suicide but felt no pain at the dreadfull thought of jumping from the parapet of her roof. A grippling narration indeed, exposing the extent to which women's voices are silenced and dismissed, even today, especially in the courtroom of which Vijay Tendulkar himself was a witness during the days when he was studying violence and its depiction in contemporary society.