| Gabhricha Paus | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Satish Manwar |
| Produced by | Prashant Pethe |
| Written by | Satish Manwar |
| Starring | Sonali Kulkarni Girish Kulkarni Jyoti Subash Veena Jamkar Aman Attar |
| Music by | Dattaprasad Ranade |
| Cinematography | Sudheer Palsane |
| Editing by | Suchitra Sathe |
| Release date(s) | January 26, 2009 (Rotterdam) |
| Country | India |
| Language | Marathi |
Gabhricha Paus (Marathi: Gabhricha Paus, English: The Damned Rain) is a 2009 Marathi-language black comedy film about the prevalence of suicide among the drought-stricken farmers in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India.[1] The film has been directed by Satish Manwar, and stars Girish Kulkarni, Sonali Kulkarni, Aman Attar and Jyoti Subhash. The film uses the Varadi dialect of Marathi, which is spoken in the Vidarbha region.[2]
Contents |
The film is about the life of a farmer Kisna (Girish Kulkarni), who is trying to get a good crop in the drought-stricken Vidarbha region, which has been notorious for farmer suicides. It also allegorically tells about how lack of information and education amongst the farmers, can ruin them, despite their indefatigable spirit.
After, the debt-ridden neighbour Bhaskar Deshmukh commits suicide, amongst many other farmers of the region, Kisna's wife Alka (Sonali Kulkarni) observes Kisna's aloofness and interprets that Kisna is contemplating suicide too. She asks their 6-year old son Dinu (Aman Attar) to keep a watch on Kisna, and report any irregular behavior. Kisna is however imbued by the thoughts of the arrival of the Monsoon.
During these days, Alka tries her best by preparing Puran Poli amongst other myriad efforts to keep Kisna in good spirit. However, Kisna being inherently stronger than his peer farmers, albeit aloof, is often annoyed by the overt and misplaced concern of his wife.
Pawning jewelry, Kisna purchases cotton seeds from Nagpur City, intending to sow them when the rains arrive. The seeds fail to germinate, due to the late arrival of the monsoons and this is the only time in the entire movie Kisna contemplates suicide, by consuming pesticide. However, Alka sells other jewelry and purchases a fresh set of seeds, which are sowed. Due to the vagaries of the rain, Kisna is able to reap only two quintals of cotton, which is taken away by the money-lender/cotton trader, leaving Kisna's family with nothing.
Meanwhile, Kisna, with his indefatigable spirit, goes to a bank in the city, takes a loan and installs a bore-well in his farm, despite the perpetual pessimism of Patil. The bore-well itself doesn't work to its potential due to the erratic power supply, typical of the hinterlands of Vidarbha. At this stage, Patil gives Kisna the idea of drawing electric power from the Electric power transmission lines.
Kisna never gives up even till the end, where ill-advised, he naively tries to tap electric power from the high voltage Electric power transmission lines to power his water pump of the recently installed bore-well and loses his life by electrocution.
Prashant Pethe, the film's producer, who is also a merchant navy officer, had no money left for distributing the film after its completion. So,he started showcasing it at various film festivals in the hope of finding support.[1] Subsequently, the film was screened at many film festivals.