An unfair tale!

Madaathy, An Unfairy Tale. (Tamil; 2021)
Director & Writer: Leela Manimekalai

It is said there is a back story behind every village deity. Madaathy is one such goddess. A representative of the feminine powers of the Universe, it is said that she is the embodiment of the spirit of a wronged low caste adolescent girl. 

The first scene itself sets the mood for the rest of the movie. A newly-wed couple, in their best attire, goes on a joyful motorbike ride to Madaathy temple. En route, the bride realises that she just started her menstruation and insists that they stop to get some kind of sanitation napkin. It would flash upon viewers that we are into something taboo. Are they going to cancel their journey or continue to the destination? We are left to wonder.

The story revolves around a group of the lowest of the Dalit community, the Puthirai Vannars. Sometimes, I wonder whether these types of communities and such levels of oppression do actually exist. According to the director/writer, the story was well researched and based on actual events when she was interviewed during the film launch. The Puthirai Vannars comprise a particular group that clean garments. Not any garment but articles of clothing used by the sick, diseased or recently deceased. Sometimes they are summoned to clean the menstrual cloths of villagers. They are cleaners but are considered too polluted to be seen in public. They must never be in full view of others and even live at the edge of the village, delineated by a river. They are too cursed to be seen.

Being impure or outcast does not cross the men's minds when they lust for these Dalit women. They are regularly raped. The Dalits have no recourse to state their predicament.

The film tells the story of a rebellious adolescent girl who runs wild in the forest and builds a crush on one of the village boys. She builds sandcastles in the air only to be gang-raped by her crush and his friends on a drunken night of the Madaathy temple consecration. The girl dies, and her spirit lives in the deity.

Agreed the storytelling, characterisation and cinematography are world-class par excellence. But sometimes, I wonder if all the numerous accolades attached to the film were given not because of its quality but rather because it puts the sub-continent and its dwellers in a horrible light. They like to assume that India is still the same backwater as was depicted in Katherine Mayo's 1927 novel 'Mother India'. They find joy in continually degrading Indian society, religions and culture and portraying the whole of India as worse than the Dark Ages of medieval and savage Europe.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.