Celebrity Speak
Our first celebrity blog post for the week comes from the director of our Bell Bajao TV Commercials – Bauddhayan Mukherji of Little Lamb Films – or ‘Buddy’ as he is fondly called. Read his take on the impact the ads made on him.
The guy in the blue and white T-shirt in the centre is our very own Buddy.
There was a stunned silence when I told her the three bellbajao films are mine.
“Tor banano? (You have directed them)?” I could sense the disbelief in her voice!
“Yes” I reaffirmed with a chuckle.
I was expecting a ‘wow’ from her… but she kept quiet.
It was kind of… odd. Two friends catching up after a good five years and to my mind the conversation was flowing nicely. And suddenly she didn’t want to continue any further. Odd.
She hung up soon and I was kept reeling at the abruptness in which our conversation ended. She must have hated the films, I told myself or… was it something else?
Precisely two hours later her sms comes – U cant even imagn wat de bellbajao campgn means 2 me! I m a victim of domestic violence myself. Thnx for de lovely films.
I HAD to call her back…
She had married a batchmate of hers. They had seen each other for two years at the management institute in Bombay before they decided to tie the knot. He was from a state down south and apart from their similar taste in films they didn’t really have much in common. But she was in love and that must have helped her discount everything else in life. And the honeymoon did last for the first few months. Soon enough the glitches started to show up. Her husband wasn’t doing too well professionally while she was. The “frustration” was too much for him. He became abusive. One fine day he decided to shift to his home town. She followed and eventually gave up her career. The abuse continued and amidst all this she conceived. Pregnancy was unbearable. She was being beaten up for not knowing his mother tongue, for conceiving when her husband was still struggling to find his feet in the corporate ladder, for the still born could be a girl!!!! It was bizarre.
And only after she had her miscarriage she garnered enough courage to call it quits!
After 3 years in hell she walked out, went back to her parents in Calcutta (she finally did confide in them) and started all over.
I was in shock as her story unfolded. I had always had this strange belief that domestic violence does not happen to people in my periphery. As she spoke, that invisible socio economic shield that I thought ‘protected’ the people around me caved in, in a jiffy.
And then came the clincher…
“Why didn’t you make the films earlier, Bauddhayan?”
As I tried to read her mind, she continued…
“Who knows, someone could have rung the bell.”
I stood there speechless. I really didn’t know how to react. Would I be right in cursing myself? Do I feel sad for her? Or would I be glad because there would be other similar stories which may NOW have a different ending?
Would wait for answers…
Tagged domestic violence
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