‘SHE IS’ Highlights Women’s Everyday Struggles

She walks amongst harsh reality of life with her ambition on one hand and on the other her family, but she does a balance act. Whenever she is down, a line from the inspirational song written by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ashe Tome Ekla Chalo Re… reports Vinod Raghavan

SHE IS – Mother, Sister, Daughter, Wife and Friend portrayed by well known model-actor Piya Pawani in the short film directed by Anirban Ray as a mark of respect to all womenfolk on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

The 10-minute film portrays Piya in a pivotal role highlighting her daily chores, which she takes it up with ease inspite of ups and downs in her life.

Her family with her husband played by Kabeer Yousuf, son by Rehan and the mother-in-law by veteran actor Azra Aleem. Piya playing the role of a multi tasking lady, handles her office pressure with ease and a smile.

Inspite of her hard work, the trophy which she was awarded is snatched by her male colleague portrayed by Anirban Ray. She pleads to the world it’s her hard work for which she has been rewarded, but the shrewd colleague snatches and shamelessly claims as his achievement, the director highlighted the ongoing scenario in the job market how people manipulates.

EVEN WOMEN TOO

It’s not only men, but women too are manipulator, is shown beautifully in the film. Piya helps an unknown lady played by Indu Baburaj, in her journey of achieving greater heights, and the same lady blocks her and pulls her down. Inspite of blocking her, a shocked Piya wishes good luck to the unknown soul and moves ahead.

In her journey balancing between work and home front, she faces lot of opposition which the director subtly used from the mythology – Ramayana, Mahabharata, Apple as eve from the Bible and Desert as Hagar, mother of Ismael from Islam religion.

Like in Ramayana, Sita had to spend in dense jungle and also had to face the Agni (fire) test. Director smartly explored beautiful locations from various parts of Oman and in Mahabarata the Pandavas and Kauravas plays the dice game.

The jungle and the fire scenes are from the picturesque Hadash Village which is on a curvy mountain 1500 metre above sea level around 200 km from Muscat on the Barka-Nakhal road.

Piya boldly crossed the real fire which was shot thrice, as the director wanted to get more perfection and she did it with ease.

She was also stalked by a local Romeo, seeing a single women, he tried tried to bully her, but she displayed her women power skills too and crosses the hurdle and moves ahead.

After the day long travelling and shooting, the entire crew were tired. While returning back the director saw the beautiful Moon shining in the darkness , he asked the driver to stop and summoned Piya, for one more shot, the exhausted actress didn’t thought for a second and faced the camera nearly for an hour.

In another shot at Yitti surrounded by beautiful mountains, was the tough scene as weather was bad, entire crew armed with warm jackets and covered their head with caps and scarfs, but Piya bravely faced the chilly wind and without any complain shot for hours.

Ekla Chalo

The famous Bangla song written by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and sung by Usha Uthap song Ekla Chalo… Perfectly suits her and uplifts her energy to start afresh inspite of all hurdles she comes across in her journey from family to work place, her dedication was tremendous said Anirban who was happy to see the outcome of the film.

The film was gripped by its soulful narration by Kartik P a business analyst by profession in Oman and the photography by Anirban was assisted by Vishal Raghavan.