Gutrun Gutargun: A Love Story With a National Cause!
The film Gutrun Gutargun’s promotional campaign in
different cities of Rajasthan is catching the eyes of many in the country and
has taken the media by storm because of its strong social message with a dash
of love story. The film’s lead actress Asmita Sharma has stirred up a hornets
nest by saying that we need to stop treating women as a second-class citizen
and take concrete steps to stop gender discrimination in all spheres of life. She
says that open defecation and related health issues are century old vices of
the society. Though, over the years successive governments have tried to
address many social and health issues successfully but it seems to provide
basic sanitation facilities to all in the country is still a herculean tasks
and a distant dream. Pratik Sharma the Director of the film pitches his movie
as a love story between a husband (Shambu) and wife (Uganti). He feels that a
social message on open defecation and the right to have designated toilets with
an ample amount of entertainment have never been made as feature film till date
in our country. His efforts are being appreciated at all platforms by people
where the movie has been screened. He is very happy to ad that the state governments
of Bihar, Rajasthan and Jharkhand have made Gutrun Gutargun Tax free and this
move shall make his movie more accessible to people. The music of Gutrun
Gutargun is melodious and gels well with the theme. Rohith Sharma is the music
composer of this out of the box film.
According to Pratik Sharma the concept of his movie evolved
because of a chance meeting with Mumbai based senior writer and columnist Satyadev
Tripathi way back in 2012. Satyadev had narrated an incident to him about a
bride who wanted to go to the washroom in the midst of wedding ceremony and in
the absence of one she was left with no option but to go out in the open.
Praatik felt the need of making his first feature film on this issue of lack of
sanitation facilty in rural aras especially those faced by women. He also felt
the need to highlight the duality in the society in regard to this issue.
The film and its impressive making made me interact with
many across the country on the issue of sanitation, hygiene, women safety and
gender discrimination.
Bindu Cherungath, Co-Founder and Director of Insignia
Solutions Private Limited who is also a Corporate Trainer, Organization
Development Consultant and a known film Critic (www.lenzscope.com) based in New
Delhi pitches in to say that the lack of basic right for sanitation facilities
is also seen in Metropolitan Cities as well. For instance, she says that when she
travel across the country to conduct corporate training programmes she has seen
companies having lavatory for men only attached to training halls and no
facilities for women. On asking the HR the answer that she receives in response
is that women are only a few in number and therefore the lavatory here in this
training block is not there but then they have one in another block. It means that
a lady need to walk from one block to another block to relieve her. Bindu says she had a similar experience in a
fortune 500 PSU where she found no designated toilet for women and she had to
ask a male colleague to stand guard in front of gent’s toilet so that she could
use it. On asking the women employees of that company told her that the
requisition to construct a toilet for
women is pending since many years.
Kshema a development practitioner, research scholar,
speech therapist and film enthusiast from Bangalore says that experiences from
our land shows us that it’s not only just an issue of hygiene. It draws in
tangents from caste issue (notion of purity), water scarcity; open defecation
even has become a part and parcel of socializing for women who never have a
leisure time otherwise. It’s all right here. It’s just that we need to look to
see it, see to observe, and observe to bring out the empathetic you. It’s the
start. It’s not women versus men rather this is a human issue which need to be
dealt on a war footing level. Kshema quickly adds that Guntrun Gutargun has
become a trail blazer for many filmmakers to come up with such stories of
social inequalities and human rights violations so that the nation and the people
at the highest echelons of power act immediately.
R Vinay an M Phil student and a student activist from
Ravi Shankar university shares his view on Gutrun Gutargun as a welcome change
in storytelling. He feels that such movies shall draw the attention of
youngsters like him to take up social issues on social media and engage the
student community in more meaningful dialogues for ensuring and implementing
social justice. He feels that the initiative taken by the filmmaker and
Director Praatik Sharma by asking people to join in to tweet and share stories
of their challenges in regard to similar experience of denial of basic right
for sanitation is commendable. According to Vinay, #GGWTN (Gutrun Gutargun With
The Nation) has caught the fancy of social media enthusiast to make it a full-fledged
movement till the issue of open defecation and women safety, health and gender
equality is not fulfilled.
Meenakshi Pathak theatre artist and a film enthusiast from
Mumbai shares that she is a traveler who loves to visit different parts of the
country and while she does that she has gone through the ground reality of lack
of designated toilets for women. She has also found that being a patriarchal society
it is ok for men to relieve themselves anywhere and at any time of the day but
what about women? Meenakshi says if we go through the newspaper headlines every
day we come to know that women put themselves in danger by going for open
defecation in villages and not so developed parts of the country. She puts her
health at risk and also becomes victims of sexual abuse, molestation and rape. Meenakshi
Pathak share that she happy to be part of #GGWTN and is keen to see many more joining
the ‘Gutrun Gutargun With The Nation’ initiative taken by the film and its
makers.
Usha Vallaiyya a high School teacher and a women rights activist
from Chhattisgarh says that it’s high time that the ‘Ugantis’ (The onscreen
character of Asmita Sharma in the film Gutrun Gutargun) should stop waging
their war for the right to have designated toilets at a personal level and should
come out in open to unite against this social injustice just like any other
movement for human rights in our country and in the world. Usha Vallaiyya vents
her anger by saying that ‘Beti Bachao and Beti Padao’, “Khulle Mai Shoch Band
Karo’ “Mahilla Paar athyachar Band Karo” sloganeering should go beyond advertisement
gimmicks and should translate into real work, which she feels is yet to happen.
Being an Educationist she adds that such awareness of rights should be part of
curriculum in schools so that men and women stand united for ensuring basic
human rights.
Omana Mathew a theologian, Social activist, Kerala
Council of Churches Chairperson of Women Commission and the wife of a church priest
says that she as a women activist and an educationist has always stood for
equal rights for both men and women in churches as well as in society. Omana after
hearing the story of the film Gutrun Gutargun is quite elated to know that the
film has sparked off a debate in the country. Her everyday interaction with women
of different social strata reveals that the lack of designated toilets in the
country is a major concern. She tells that there should be Key Responsible
Areas KRAs) defined for all government
officers and politicians and welfare bodies at all levels to fulfill certain
targets every year to build and ensure basic sanitation facilities. And stern
actions should be taken against those who doesn’t perform and fulfill the set
targets. According to her its hightime that we stop allowing anyone any further
to take the nation for granted. Building toilets and other basic sanitation
facilities is equally important as building over bridges, roads, envisioning
bullet trains and so on and so forth. She adds that unfortunately many girls
drop out of studies in villages when they reach puberty because of lack of
sanitation facilities in schools. Uganti and her story in Gutrun Gutargun
narrates a lot about millions of people in our country.
Professor John Mathews from Kuwait who runs his own chain
of Educational Institution, a film enthusiast and the Producer of an upcoming
Malayalam film ‘Piplanthari” (a women centric movie that speaks about girl
child and the right to be born and live as a girls in our country) strongly
vouches for the film ‘Gutrun Gutargun’. He emphatically tells that content
driven movies with strong social messages with ample dash of entertainment
shall change the country. He believes that cinema is a strong medium for
ensuring and creating social justice and creative people should come forward to
be part of such movements. He applauds the effort and initiative taken by Praatik
Sharma and Asmita Sharma in this regard. He tells he is happy to hear that
Gutrun Gutargun is the first film in the country to ever talk about the issue
of ‘Open defecation’ and the right to sanitation facilities. He adds that many documentaries have been made
on these issues but they lack the quality and the required content to catch
hold of the interest of audience. Gutrun Gutargun shall definitely bridge this
gap.
David James a Delhi University student and a budding
musician happily joins the Gutrun Gutargun With The Nation campaign by saying
that as music is for everybody so is human rights. It is not fair for some to hold
the privileges to live a better life and a majority to be denied the basic
necessities to live a happy and safe life. He adds that the lyrics, music and the story
of Gutrun Gutargun is meaningful and relevant. David feels that such movies
should be further made and encouraged because it tells and shares the pain of a
nation as well as the aspiration of creating a better world to live an excel in
all aspects of life.
Gutrun Gutargun after its success in Patna has set its
foot in Rajasthan. The film shall
release in a number of theater in major cities of Rajasthan on 3rd February,
2017. Asmita Sharma and Praatik Sharma along with their team is holding a
series of promotional campaign across the state. Talk shows in colleges,
schools, universities, social institutions, government welfare bodies are part
of the campaign. The social, print and electronic media has jumped in enthusiastically
in response to the campaign. It seems that the wave is going to soon sweep
across the nation soon. One can log on to www.facebook.com/gutrungutargun or
tweet @gutargun to share their views and stories in regard to the theme of the
film and interact with the films crew. Insignia Imprints Inc. Cinema to Masses an organization which believes in content driven cinemas has extended its support to #GGWTN campaign and the film. Bulb Jalega.com an event management firm is actively involved in the campaign and promotion of Gutrun Gutargun.
