“Should we go with the old world or the new world?”

It is a question that has been confusing India’s Young women for a while now. An Indo-Canadian filmmaker Nisha Pahuja, with great sense of objectivity shows us both the worlds in her 90 minutes of riveting documentary movie “The World Before Her” From Durga to Miss India.

The documentary revolves around two people, Ruhi Singh and Prachi Trivedi.

Ruhi is an aspiring model contesting for Miss India pageant, while Prachi is a staunch Hindu nationalist, a member of Durgavahini camp for women. Both have different worlds before them.

Ruhi, who comes from a small town in Rajasthan, goes through all the hardships and pains to realize her dream. She wants to win the contest, at any cost. Her parents have given her freedom, freedom to dream and pursue it. She is independent, on her way to fame and success. Then there is Prachi, who has been visibly influenced by the Durga-Vahini coordinators and the ideals of Vishwa Hindu Parishad. She is strong, bold, and short tempered. But unlike Ruhi who is lovingly supported by her parents, Prachi is being bullied by her father. Her parents do not give her choice. For Prachi, Durga Vahini and her “nationalism” is her life.

The World Before Her also depicts other people, the different scenarios and their aspirations around these two. Apart from raising questions about women’s choice, feminism, objectification, the film also touches the boundaries of communalism and religion based feud going in India. One may literally get goose bumps when a young camper at Durga-Vahini, Chinmayee says that while she was a child she had Muslim friends. She was very innocent then. But now she understands things and does not have friends of any other religion except Hindu. There are shots of Hindu leaders trying to brainwash these young girls at the camp in Durga-Vahini.  As claimed in the film, it is for the very first time that a film crew was let inside a Durga-Vahini camp.

The director has very nicely balanced all the incidents in the two worlds. Pooja Chopra, the winner of Miss India 2011, was raised by her mother, as the mother-daughter duo was tormented by the father for giving birth to a female child. Prachi forgives her father for all his dominance over her life and her choices and accepts that as part of being a “daughter”,  just because she feels obligated that her father let her live in spite of being a female . At first, it may seem that the film-maker is trying to show two completely different worlds. But when looked closely, one can see that they are not very different from each other.

Both the worlds, with their own strengths and flaws, shackles under pretext of culture and religion or modernity and glamour.  It is the women, trapped in both the worlds.

The Miss India contest, however broad-minded and cool it may look, does the same old thing: it too objectifies women. The contestants have been shown to go through the entire ordeal, the physical “fixes”, injections and training to look like that “perfect” woman. A scene depicts how the girls are asked to cover all of their bodies except legs; because the pageant director wants to know “Whose legs are the sexiest?” just shows the extent of vanity. One of the contestants, Ankita also says that this world gives them fame and success, but at what cost? What about their self respect and dignity?

On the other hand, the Durga-Vahini’s sole objective seems induce fundamentalism in young girls. Soon, these girls too become slaves of their own patriarchal system, as Prachi agrees in the film who despite of being fiercely influenced by her camp’s diktats doesn’t believe in the need of “getting married” to complete her life.

Very subtly, the film raises a question before us: Can we make a system, a world for our women where she is not objectified? A world where she feels comfortable? A place where she can choose for herself. Can we?

Do not miss The World Before Her shows, an acclaimed film between 20-26th June at selected theaters in Surat, Pune, Mumbai, Kochi. Details here.