A short promotional film challenging the traditional view in India that a married daughter must stay with her husband in their marital home – even if he is abusive – has spotlighted domestic violence and won hearts across the country.
The three-and-a-half-minute Band Baaja Bitiya – Hindi for “a wedding band and daughter” – is the moving tale of a father who goes to retrieve his daughter from her violent matrimonial home and uses the celebratory wedding band as a mark of defiance.
The film starts with the father, played by veteran Bollywood actor Gajraj Rao, receiving a phone call from his daughter Surabhi.
“Again?” he asks, the pained expression on his face reflecting the troubling news he’s just heard.
The advice he receives from family and friends is typical. “It’s her home, her fate.” Or, “tell her to adjust.” “A little bit of shoving and pushing” is “no big deal” in a marriage. Once Surabhi has a baby, “things would sort themselves out”.
“In India, it’s said that the bride enters the husband’s home carried on a palanquin and that she leaves only after her death, carried out on a funeral bier,” Rao told the BBC. “It’s believed that the father’s responsibility ends the day he gives away his daughter in marriage.”
But Rao’s screen father chooses not to look away. And when he goes to rescue his daughter, he makes a song and dance about it, literally, by hiring a wedding band – since there was one at the send-off, why shouldn’t there be one when she returns?
“It’s not a matter of shame for the father,” Rao says. “He wants to welcome her back with the same pomp and show with which he had sent her off. By celebrating her return, he’s showing his pride that he’s putting an end to her pain and torture.”
As his battered daughter runs into his arms, the film’s message is loud and clear: a daughter is forever.