Director: Viplove Koneti
In the junior years of my training, I had the chance to manage patients who were brought in after suicide attempts. The drug of choice in that demographic was paraquat, a deathly organophosphate herbicide which worked well at keeping weed at bay. Unfortunately, it also proved to be lethal to humans. A tablespoon of the deathly liquid proved lethal. Even if stomach washout and chelation were instituted early, once urinary paraquat was positive, death is inevitable. Within 14 to 21 days, slow death would ensue with organ failure, specifically lung fibrosis. More amount of remorse, regret or prayers could change back time.
The population that thronged that hospital were plantation workers and had easy access to paraquat. Many of the victims were Indians, and the title of this movie brought the memory of that time of my career. Many of the parasuicides were for feeble reasons, to gain sympathy, to attract attention, to display undying love, for being jilted, scoring bad marks or even after being disciplined by parents. Unfortunately, their choice of drug proved wrong. They mostly, unfortunately, succumbed to the poison. At that time, I thought the Indian movies were to blame as many movies of the 80s included suicide as a selling point. They must have got their inspiration from the saga of Romeo and Juliet, the exemplar of pure, genuine, innocent love!
This movie turned out to be nothing like that. It seems to have been inspired by cases of mass suicide like Branch Davidian and the Waco incident, as well as the Jonestown massacre in Guyana, but with a twist. The components of a femme fatale and sibling killers (spoiler alert) are present.
A coffee shop owner is visited by a young lady offering her biscuit cookies to be sold in the shop. The owner, a young man who grew up in an orphanage, slowly falls for the girl. One thing led to another, and the girl dropped a bombshell. Her family plans to have mass suicide, as prescribed by their family holy man, to reunite with her dead uncle. Our hero marries the girl, goes to her family house, and tries to get to the root of the seemingly bizarre logic that her family seems to hold steadfast to.
P.S. The movie is based on the Burari deaths in Delhi in 2018. Ten family members, including an 80-year-old grandmother, died in a ritualistic mass suicide. The deaths were determined to be motivated by shared psychosis. Read all about it here.
