An Alternate Course

Written by DIPTI NAGPAUL D’SOUZA | Published: December 12, 2017 12:51 am A still from Counterfeit Kunkoo

Nothing justifies domestic abuse. A woman, living in a low-income housing, realises this and separates from her husband. But does taking the convention-defying move liberate her? Can economical independence alone set her free in a society that looks down upon single women? Reema Sengupta’s Counterfeit Kunkoo raises these questions as it follows Smita in her struggle to find a roof over her head in Mumbai. The 15-minute fiction project is an official — and India’s only — selection at Sundance Film Festival 2018. It will feature in the “International Narrative Shorts” competition section of the festival that will be held in January next year.

Sengupta, the writer-director of the film, points out that her film begins where the issue of domestic abuse in her protagonist’s life ends. “The discussion on domestic abuse has been in the mainstream for a while but what happens when a woman, fed up of abuse and marital rape, leaves that life behind? The film explores that journey,” says Sengupta.

Counterfeit Kunkoo is the story of a woman in her early thirties, who makes imitation jewellery. The small business brings her enough money to support herself and pay rent. But she soon finds that financial independence isn’t enough and that the ghost of her abusive husband follows her in the form of social prejudices. The curious title derives from the Marathi slang for vermilion — kunkoo. Sengupta, the founder of the production house CATNIP — a prominent name in visual content creation within the Indian indie music space — had the script for the film for three years. Earlier this year, she returned to the “passion project”. “This particular script is deeply personal and this year I decided to focus on it,” says the 27-year-old.

The film has been shot over four days across real locations in Mumbai’s slums and low-income housing, the claustrophobic spaces perhaps becoming a metaphor for the character’s state of mind. Sengupta, however, says that the setting is neither a gimmick nor a privileged view of the ground reality. “I grew up in the same setting and reality that Smita comes from. I lived with my parents in some of the neighbourhoods where I have shot,” says Sengupta. Also, the concept of the film borrows from her mother’s story who left her abusive husband at the age of 45 but couldn’t find a place to move into along with her young daughter. Sengupta, then 17, was studying in London. “She was financially self-sufficient and a mother of a grown daughter. Yet she couldn’t find a house because she didn’t have a ‘husband’,” she recounts. She adds that the similarities between Smita’s character, essayed by Kani Kusruti, and her mother end here.

Making this film has been a cathartic process for Sengupta, who says she turned to art so that she could channelise her anger towards the abuse her mother, and sometimes she, suffered, in the right direction. “More than me, Smita’s character has helped my mother understand the complexities of her own emotions… In order to survive and make the best of what she had, she probably didn’t get the chance to process it all,” she says.

For the film, Sengupta’s mother also took on the role of a producer. “She was the one who made it possible to shoot in all these locations. My parents were into real estate and they know brokers and real estate agents. Because of where she came from, she also knows how to deal with middlemen and local leaders in low-income housing neighbourhoods. This film literally wouldn’t have happened without her,”
says Sengupta.

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