A Love Story

SYRACUSE – I saw an emotive movie at a film festival this evening about a lesbian relationship in rural India – a subject rarely explored by Indian filmmakers. “Sancharram” or “The Journey” is a fictional story about two childhood friends, Kiran and Delilah, who as teenagers fall deeply in love, betraying strict cultural traditions and horrifying their families. The two young women are quite opposite: Kiran is a lanky, introverted poet, while Delilah is feisty and voluptuous girl who swings her hips when she walks.
The film, released in 2004, isn’t loaded with steamy sex scenes (quite the contrary). Instead, it uses dialogue and facial expressions (those eyes!) to expose the intense love and anguish experienced by these Indian women.
Ligy Pullapally, an attorney-turned-filmmaker, wrote and directed the 107-minute movie. She said of her inspiration:
“On January 25, 2000 I received an email about a young woman at a university in the South Indian state of Kerala. She and her girlfriend had fled the school, presumably under the threat of expulsion as a result of the rumors of their love affair with each other. The women were recovered and sent back to their respective families. The next day, one of the young women’s body was found floating in the reservoir of a dam. It was a tragic loss of young life and potential, a suicide. It was, I would learn, an all too familiar circumstance in the South Indian state of Kerala.”
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(JM)