This year at the Kalaghoda festival, I watched a beautiful soul touching Marathi movie which made me leave the hall all teary eyed. The film "'Mala Aai Vhhaychy" (I want to become a mother) is built around the true incidence of the growing surrogacy practices in India where poor women are used as surrogates by foreigners.
Story plot:-
The story revolves around the two female characters Mary and Yashoda. Mary is a foreign model and she wants a baby but fears that pregnancy will spoil her figure and her career for the entire life. So she decides to get a surrogate mother for her child. Yashoda is a village woman from Maharashtra; she agrees to carry the baby in her womb because of her needy financial condition. The two women gel up well until one day during a regular medical check up it is found that the child will be born with disabilities.
Mary is shaken badly and since it was the 5th month of pregnancy, doctors advise Yashoda not to go for abortion. Mary however approaches an orphanage with a request to take the baby just after the birth. Yashoda refuses to send the baby anywhere and pleads Mary to take care of the child.
It’s a fight between two mothers; one who wants to kill the child knowing that it will be born with disabilities, while the other woman wants to rear the child, ignoring everything.
Mary leaves for her country, leaving Yashoda all alone. This brave woman then decides to give birth to the baby, fighting all odds. With God’s grace, she gives birth to a healthy blue eyed and blonde haired boy. He becomes the cynosure of all eyes in the village and everything for Yashoda.
Few years later, on knowing that the child is healthy, Mary comes to India and pleads in front of Yashoda to give her the custody of her son. Ultimately Yashoda gives in to Mary’s pleading as she guarantees a bright future for him
Life shatters for Yashoda who had stopped having food for days. At one weak moment in her life, the brave woman decides to end her life. It is exactly then when Mary comes to the village with her son. The chirpy blue eyed boy had turned into a lifeless object He being a child couldn’t go through the pain of separation from his mother and so had stopped recognising people around him. The last scene strikes the cord when the child recognises Yashoda and craves to get a hug from her.
USP of the film:-
Samruddi Porey, a practicing lawyer at the Bombay High Court, was inspired to make a film on a surrogacy-related case she was handling. She spent over two years researching on in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) governing surrogacy, and put in her own money into making the film. She contributed to the film's screenplay, dialogues and editing.
This film also highlights the other social issues –apathy of the farmers, the importance of a middle man in getting any of the work done.
The American child-Aiden, who acted in the movie, was himself, a surrogate child born in India. His parents were back in India to have their second surrogate child when Porey noticed Aiden and approached them for the role. Aiden, who could barely speak his own mother tongue, became fluent in the Waradhi dialect (local) within four months. The entire film was shot over a period of 15 days.
Awards and recognition:-
The film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Marathi. It was also selected to be shown to President Obama by President Pratibha Patil.
Porey had the guts to take this controversial topic of surrogacy as a subject of her first film and that too in a regional language.
This might be just a one among the hundred cases where the surrogate mother got justice of her motherhood. After surrogacy was made legal in 2002, people say it is turning into a business- but is it that easy to bear someone else’s child in your womb for 9 months and then part with it?
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