Ebong Bewarish (and the Unclaimed) Filming Locations

On February 21, 2011, two young girls committed suicide together in Nandigram, one of the interior villages in West Bengal. As the story unfolded we came to know of their love affair, and non-acceptance of the village community as well as their families. To deal with 'abnormal' relationship, one of the girls was married off in a haste. Under the societal pressure, the two girls committed suicide. But their death did not end societal non-acceptance. After their death their bodies lay in the police morgue for several days unclaimed by their families. One of the girls left a letter telling their story of love and loathing and asking their parents to cremate them together. The parents rejected their wish and the unclaimed bodies were disposed off by the police, unattended, uncared for. Debalina's film '... ebang bewarish' (...and the unclaimed), talks about these two unclaimed dead bodies and many more dead and living ones. The central question being non-acceptance of non-normative persons, the film brings out pain and desolation of such persons who are 'unclaimed' by their loved ones and by the society at large. Four protagonists narrate their stories of living as misfits. The film explores the connection of these tales of living persons with the dead ones. 'If we want to keep the dead alive within us, then their death is also a part of our living, don't you think so ?' The film is a tribute to life, non-normative or not, and also to death, when that is the only way to live! This documentary, while centering on the suicide of Swapna and Sucheta, also tells the stories of four different individuals who, because of their otherness, their gender or sexual preferences, have to through their unique struggles, yet similar to that of Swapna's and Sucheta's life.