Geeli Pucchi - A Short Film from Ajeeb Dastaans [Screening & Discussion]

One Film, Twenty Voices: Our First Screening of 'Geeli Pucchi'

At 6:30 on an evening in Mumbai, almost twenty people gathered at The Public Place, near Kurla/Tilak Nagar, to watch a 43-minute film. The film was 'Geeli Pucchi', from the anthology 'Ajeeb Daastaans'. But what happened after those 43 minutes was perhaps more important than the film itself.

With cups of tea and coffee, snacks being passed around, and people settling into an increasingly comfortable circle, we began talking. What started as a discussion about the fictional women in the film slowly moved beyond the screen. We spoke about caste, class, gender, sexuality, homosexuality and queer identities. We spoke about Dalit women as protagonists, about Dalit women's voices in cinema and art, and about who gets to tell whose stories.

The conversation went on for nearly 'two hours'. What made it special was that it wasn't a lecture or a panel discussion. There was no single person expected to have the "right" interpretation. Every spectator brought their own reading, questions, disagreements and experiences. People listened to one another, challenged ideas, laughed, reflected and sometimes sat with uncomfortable questions.

Some had travelled directly from work. Some had come from far away. Everyone arrived carrying their own busy lives, yet for those few hours, we created a little pocket of time to simply watch, think and talk together. There was also something wonderfully informal about the evening. People contributed whatever they could towards the screening. There was food, conversation, laughter and a warmth that made the room feel less like an event venue and more like a gathering of people who had somehow known each other for longer than an evening. And that is perhaps what I was hoping for when I imagined this screening. I didn't want cinema to end when the credits rolled.

I wanted it to become a starting point for conversations—especially conversations that we often hesitate to have in our everyday lives. Geeli Pucchi gave us that starting point.

It gave us two women, their desires, their differences and their silences. But it also gave us a way to talk about the larger structures that shape our lives and the ways caste, gender, class and sexuality intersect with the stories we see on screen and the stories we tell about ourselves.

For me, the most beautiful part of the evening was watching people find their voices in the room. Almost twenty people came together to watch one film, and stayed for two hours to talk about everything that the film opened up. Maybe this is what a film screening can be.

Not just a screen. Not just an audience. Not just a discussion.

But a small, warm, closed-knit space where we can ask difficult questions, listen to one another, and discover that we are not the only ones thinking about them.

This was our first screening. And if this is where we begin, with one film, twenty voices, some tea and coffee, and a two-hour conversation, I think there is something worth building here.