“ Main shaadi ko zyada manyata nahi deti, mujhe shadi ke naam se hi nafrat hai,” says Hamida Sheikh, a worker in a self-help group in Ahmedabad, in the documentary Teesra Pahar (Early Evening) directed by Anubha Jain. The film explores the lives of three unmarried women who have crossed the ‘marriageable’ age. The film has travelled to various film festivals around the world including Woodpecker film festival in New Delhi where it won the viewer’s choice award and recently concluded International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala.
Her film is a testimony to the fact that you gain strength when you learn to listen to your own voice and live life on your own terms. It carefully examines various forces in the society that tell single women that there is something wrong with them. But at the same time, it motivates to stay true to yourself when so many voices are telling you to follow a more conventional path and take your decisions on your choice.
The trigger
“I had seen many unmarried women professors in my college in Delhi University, but the trigger for the film was a newspaper headline which was mocking a lady who got married at the age of fifty. I was shocked by the level of morality which exists in our society where if a lady gets married in her later age, it raises many eyebrows but at the same time, men can marry at whatever age they want. The dual standard is what intrigued me to explore this mature topic,” reveals Anubha.
Anubha Jain
Touching different notions such as financial independence of women, the idea of beauty for marriage and sexual preferences of independent women, the documentary states that if a single woman's life is not a cocktail party, it is not a prison sentence as well through the riveting stories of three independent single women in their later part of life metaphorically told as “Teesra Pahar”or the third quarter of the life. “Single women who have crossed the marriageable age are being considered as outcast in our society as respect and identity come with marriage for them. But marriage is about commitment and companionship not about the age. The film tries to communicate to the viewers the voices of these women who are saying that before you write me off as an outcast, just listen to me once,” reflects the young design graduate who hails from New Delhi.
The film coherently puts forward that life of every person is similar as it has responsibilities, good days and bad ones, successes and failures and it does not change if one does not decide to marry. It treads through different terrains, each woman defining one unique terrain and let viewers know who they really are as a person and as a professional not just showing contemporary single women who take care of themselves financially. “Swadha Majumdar is a retired woman in her seventies but Purvi Vyas and Hamida Shaikh are professionals purely dedicated to their work. They are different but the common thread which ties these three women together is what they have seen in their lives and what they have gone through because of their decision to not marry. I think all women experience the same but what makes some different is their decision to listen to their heart and take the decision of their own while other women follow the conventional path and fail to listen to what they really want,” remarks Anubha.
She has shot the documentary in Ahmedabad, which she found a very conservative city, as people used to shy away just by knowing that it involves something which is considered abnormal in the society but she dedicates her perseverance to the gravity of the issue which made her find out the three single ladies who are living independently with achievements of their own. “I came to know that you cannot touch things or cannot go to some important events just because you are unmarried. This tarnishes your basic sense as how is marriage related to touching things? In 2017, if we are still grappling with these taboos, how can we imagine a developed and liberated society?,” asks Anubha.
Her documentary distances from poignancy yet open important questions which the contemporary single women are asking for their respect and recognition. Staying away from making the film a feminist view point of marriage as an institution was her conscious decision as she was putting more effort in bringing out the experiences that unmarried women go through than what marriage means for them as a woman. “The moment you take sides, the real stories are lost. I believe in recognising the female as a person, not as someone more capable or different. The gender issue is important because it is personal and that makes the movie personal, not feminist,” says Anubha.
