Janani's Juliet

 The first thought that came to my mind after learning the story of Romeo and Juliet was, " Where is Juliet? The story is supposed to be about Romeo and Juliet both but is all about Romeo and Juliet comes only in time to love him". Thanks to the director of 'Chandala', Koumarane, for saying " I'm willing to make changes" and giving me that version of the story that I've always longed for.

The documentary 'Janani's Juliet' by Pankaj Rishi Kumar, is an abbreviation of the behind the scenes of the play 'Chandala'. A theatre group, Indianostrum, set out to create a remake of the Shakespeare novel Romeo and Juliet but by involving the conflicts caused due to them being from different castes. They wanted to make a play as mentioned but ended up creating such a powerful public statement with layers of refinement with a crystal clear message-To love form a lower/higher caste than yours is sin for which you shall be punished by death. Jack and Janani are the Tamil Romeo and Juliet respectively with Jack being from a lower and Janani being for a higher caste. It is inspired by the real life story of Shankar and Kausalya of whom Shankar is murdered by Kausalya's family and Kausalya still lives on as proof for their story. The Juliet (Janani) in the play is portrayed as dumb which is a perfect resonance of how it didn't matter whether she could speak or not; she was always silenced.

The foundation of the play and the documentary is laid when the crew goes to meet Kausalya, whose husband was killed by her family in the name of 'honour'. Pankaj is of the opinion that she was the soul of the story. He says "As soon as I met her, my convictions were reaffirmed. Soon after, the structure of my documentary fell into place. She brought in a whole new understanding to the play and to my documentary". Kausalya describes vividly the life that she had whilst living at her upper caste household where she was not allowed to walk or talk loudly and was expected to be a 'girl'. It was when she got to Shankar's(her husband) house that she started experiencing true freedom and love. Her family set out to kill not only Shankar but her too because they didn't want an offspring of 'shame' to be left but fortunately(or not?) Kausalya survived. This incident raises the big question of what they mean by their so-called 'honour'.

A cleverly-made documentary of a cleverly plotted drama; this is what I would call 'Janani's Juliet'. It has won the best long documentary award at the international documentary and short film festival, the Bala Kailasam award and many more. It is India's official entry to the 2019 Oscar Awards. It is also one among the best voted documentaries by all leading documentary directors. Pankaj has worked with Koumarane and the troop before and therefore, the camera eyes do not seem to intrigue the members at all. This, I feel, might have been a major part in the documentary's success as the crew were all very comfortable about being in it. Overall, this is a documentary that serves a very good watch along with making us think.

A final thought before we end : "If only Romeo had stopped to cry for a few minutes before drinking the poison, wouldn't they be together now?" 

- Fathima Naushad.