Rudaali

Shanichari is a beautiful girl born in lower cast and her life is full of sufferings because of lower cast, poor finances, lost parents, drunken husband, mischievous son. The title refers to a custom in some parts of Rajasthan-where aristocratic women were long kept secluded and veiled-of hiring professional women mourners on the death of a male relative, a rudaali (pronounced “roo-dah-lee”-literally, a female “weeper”) to publicly express the grief that family members, constrained by their high social status, were not permitted to display-or at times, perhaps did not feel. Underwritten by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and Doordarshan (Indian national television) and based on a short story by famed Bengali author Mahasweta Devi-whose tales often focus on the travails of low-caste women.