The 12-minute documentary “Shame was a Place Inside” by Priyanka Chhabra was screened at India Habitat Centre last week. Though short, the documentary deals with a subject very few delve upon. It explores the psychology of shame— where it stems from, how it comes to make home in bodies and minds, how one reacts to it and also undoes it. Chhabra earlier handled the subject matter in an audio installation. When Public Service Broadcasting Trust invited short films on gender and violence, she filmed the documentary using the conversations.
The film was designed to start from the personal and by stitching together varying personal experiences, reflect upon the larger issues of sex, morality, desire and gender. It aims to raise potent questions about the validity of female desire, the role of the family in creating gender norms and the normalisation of the process of looking at one’s body as the other.
On choosing shame, Priyanka explains: “It is a very deeply personal emotion. We have never thought as to when did we experience it. It is also a mixture of guilt and fear and an emotion which actually needs an audience, the presence of self or social self.”
The film questions if one is free from fear of the other and the self. The moving train through the city, reflections, windows and cars in the film, carrying voices of people, contemplate the nature of shame and just how far deep does the emotion of shame reside. The echoes touch far back to the realms of childhood and the seemingly normal image of the family.
The participants in documentary share their feeling and opinions on varying subjects like menstrual cycle, on being gay, sexual harassment and abuse, etc. “Through the conversations and answers I received from those interviewed I deciphered a basic thread which involved the body and shame and how the former leads to the latter. It was more pronounced for women,” comments the director.
Listening to the narrative it is evident what constitutes shame is dictated by the society and surroundings. A biological change in a girl is perceived by the society as impure, leading to the one undergoing it, feel guilt and fear – a natural phenomena twisted without any basis. Similarly a person inclined towards same sex says that expressing his desire to have sex with his friends’ boyfriends and husbands would be “shameless”, adding that his parents would be “ashamed” to know that he was a gay.
The participants are not caught on camera, and the viewers see images of the city, metro or a vehicle instead. Stating that it was deliberate, Priyanka explains, “I did not use images of body and juxtaposed the audio recordings against the city. It was done to externalise the conversations which are reflective and interior. The aim was not to make the audience ponder about the image but initiative a process of reflection in self.”
