Women, especially in rural India, have to undergo such suffering

Host: The sun was setting over the fields, a vast expanse of amber wheat swaying beneath a sky streaked with red and gold. A single train track cut through the landscape, stretching into the distance like a scar that refused to heal. The air was thick with the smell of dust, smoke, and the faint echo of voices from the village nearby — women calling their children, cows returning home, a radio playing an old film song somewhere beyond the trees.

On a wooden bench near the station, Jack sat with his shirt sleeves rolled up, a camera bag beside him. His eyes, sharp and grey, were fixed on the dirt road that led to the village. Jeeny stood beside him, her dupatta fluttering in the evening breeze, a small notebook in her hand, her expression distant — a mix of sorrow, resolve, and quiet anger.

Host: The last train had passed an hour ago, but they hadn’t moved. The light was softening, falling over their faces like ashes of gold.

Jeeny: “Bhumi Pednekar once said — ‘Women, especially in rural India, have to undergo such suffering and pain. It is important for our cinema to address their pain, anger, and frustration.’”

Jack: “And you think cinema can fix that?” He squinted toward the horizon, voice flat. “A two-hour film is going to solve centuries of patriarchy?”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. But it can make people see it. And sometimes, that’s the beginning of everything.”

Jack: “Seeing doesn’t mean changing. People have been watching suffering on screens for decades. They cry, they clap, and then they go back to their lives — comfortable, detached. You think the woman carrying a bucket of water five miles every day cares about being represented in a movie?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not directly. But cinema doesn’t exist just for those who suffer — it’s also for those who need to wake up to that suffering. Art can be the mirror, Jack, the one that makes the privileged feel the burn of someone else’s pain.”

Host: A truck rumbled by, kicking up dust, breaking the stillness. The sunlight caught the particles in the air, turning them into tiny sparks. Jack’s silhouette was half in shadow, half in flame.

Jack: “You think a mirror changes anything? People look, admire, maybe pity — but they don’t act. They don’t walk into those villages, they don’t change laws. They just want a story that makes them feel morally alive for a moment. That’s not revolution — that’s entertainment.”

Jeeny: “And yet, how do revolutions start, Jack? With words. With stories. With images that haunt you after the lights go out. You remember ‘Bandit Queen’? The country was shaken because for once, people saw a woman’s rage, not just her suffering. Cinema didn’t save Phoolan Devi — but it refused to bury her.”

Jack: “Phoolan was exceptional, Jeeny. Most women don’t get that kind of voice. They’re too poor to fight, too beaten down to rebel. You can’t film them out of pain.”

Jeeny: “But you can film for them. You can turn their silence into something heard. You can make people see what they’d rather ignore. That’s what Bhumi meant — not that cinema is the cure, but that it’s the conscience we keep trying to drown.”

Host: The wind shifted, carrying the smell of wood smoke from the village. The sky deepened into purple, and the first stars began to appear, faint and flickering, like eyes that refused to close.

Jack: “You talk like a poet, Jeeny. But let me be practical. You want to make films about rural women — who’s going to watch them? Producers want profit, audiences want escape. Nobody lines up to see pain.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s the real sickness — not poverty, not patriarchy, but indifference. We consume pain like we consume everything else — quickly, guiltlessly, like fast food for the conscience. But if even one person walks out of a theater and feels something real, that’s a start.”

Jack: “A start that leads nowhere.”

Jeeny: “No, a start that leads to awareness. And awareness, Jack, is the soil from which change grows. Remember how cinema in the seventies reflected India’s working class anger — how films like Mother India, Do Bigha Zamin, Naya Daur gave dignity to labor and struggle? They didn’t fix the world, but they named the pain. They made invisible lives visible.”

Host: Jack looked down, his hand tightening around the strap of his camera bag. There was a flicker of conflict behind his eyes — the kind that comes when truth scratches too close to cynicism.

Jack: “You know what the problem is? People like us. We come, we film, we leave. We capture the pain of others and call it empathy. But for them — it’s still the same life, the same well, the same hunger.”

Jeeny: “You’re right. That’s why we have to do more than capture it. We have to listen, to collaborate, to share the voice, not steal it. Cinema can be exploitative, yes — but it can also be liberating when it’s made with truth.”

Host: The sound of drums began to rise from the village — a wedding, maybe, or a festival. The rhythm floated through the fields, melancholic, ancient, almost like a heartbeat under the earth.

Jack: “You ever been to those villages at night? The women walk miles to fetch water, barefoot, carrying metal pots on their heads. No lights. No roads. No choice. You think a movie can give them justice?”

Jeeny: “Justice isn’t just about courts, Jack. It’s about being seen, acknowledged, respected. It’s about telling a woman who’s been told her whole life she’s nothing — that she is something. And sometimes, that message doesn’t come from a politician. It comes from a screen.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice was shaking now, not from anger, but from ache. She looked toward the village, her eyes glistening with the reflection of distant fires — cooking flames, ritual lamps, small beacons of endurance.

Jeeny: “Cinema can’t replace justice, but it can carry the truth to those who’ve never looked beyond their comfort. It can plant questions. And sometimes, questions are more dangerous than answers.”

Jack: “And you think pain should be filmed?”

Jeeny: “Pain should be honored. It should be understood, not just aestheticized. We have glamorized suffering long enough. It’s time we listened to it.”

Host: The wind softened, carrying a faint song — a woman’s voice, somewhere distant, singing while grinding grain. The sound was raw, aching, yet beautiful — the kind of truth that no camera could ever fully capture, but still tried to.

Jack: “You’re right about one thing. That voice — it’s real. More real than any film. Maybe the best thing cinema can do is not to speak for her, but to echo her.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Echo, not erase.”

Host: The stars were brighter now, the sky darker, and the fields shimmered like an ocean of memory. Jack stood, slinging his camera over his shoulder.

Jack: “Maybe the next story I tell should start here — not in the city, not with the rich, but with the forgotten.”

Jeeny: “Then make sure it doesn’t end with you, Jack. Let it end with her.”

Host: The camera pans upward — the fields stretching, wind moving, voices rising. The song of the unseen women becomes the soundtrack, weaving through the night.

And in that moment, the cinema of conscience that Jeeny spoke of — the one Bhumi Pednekar dreamed about — came alive:
not on a screen,
but in a resolve,
born under the rural sky,
between two souls who had finally understood that to film pain is not to exploit it,
but to refuse its silence.