Fighting is usually a bad thing but there is one kind of fight that is noble and great – A Fight of love – a fight for justice.
Recently I watched the movie Mrs. Chatterjee Vs Norway which is based on the true story of Sagarika Chakraborty – an Indian immigrant mother whose children were forcefully taken away by a Child welfare agency and placed in Fostering. Initially it appears that cultural differences like force feeding, sharing beds and spouse not helping with chores at home as reasons for declaring them as unfit parents. But it turns out that these differences were merely used as a pretext to target immigrant or poor families. Reason?
The cited child welfare agency is a participant of an organized crime to which many parties are partners including lawyers and teachers. To meet the demand for children from rich families without children in Norway, there is motivation to place such targets into fostering to supply such demand. The agency makes a lot of money in placing each child into fostering.
I was so shocked to see how the case proceeded throughout the movie. While some compassion was shown by one or two people along the way for the desolate mother, the agency is so much more powerful and conniving to use false evidence misconstrued against the family that she kept losing the case. Debika Chatterjee – the character played by Rani Mukherjee is faced with painful disappointment each time after being given hope that her children will be returned.
What was unnerving to watch was how apathetic her own husband was to the situation as he cared more about getting his citizenship without hindrances. So he preferred to stay put rather than make any efforts to get his children back. Citizenship over children? No, I would say. But let’s just say he is thinking about the long run and believes he would get the children back and is thinking of the best interest of the family as a whole. So maybe that is acceptable. But when his wife pleads to hire a private lawyer, he refuses. Now that is money over children. Anirudh Chatterjee, a character of misguided values. I felt bad for him for it appeared his parents didn’t teach him any better. Throwing in a Disclaimer here to say that I do not know if this is true of the real story and these comments are not aimed at any real person but merely at how the story plot framed the husband’s character in the movie.
But the mother Debika, however, has nothing else in front of her eyes, but her children. Her character was so inspiring that I couldn’t get her or the story out of my head for a whole weekend and beyond. There were several things I learnt and reflected upon from it that I felt compelled to write about it.
Obedience to authority.
Culturally husbands have authority over wives in India. While dynamics have changed over time, this is still prevalent in India or even other countries based on personality, family background etc. I inferred that she is typically a wife subject to her husbands authority based on the fact that even though he physically assaulted her in the past, she continues to live with him and serve him and never brought up the idea of divorce. But she did not care about the authority of her husband over her when it came to the situation where he was clearly not making the right choices. She displayed the courage to do the right thing. It is good to be obedient to authority. But this story awakens us to the reality that, we must question authority at times.
Following the Law
I’m big on following rules. Rules are good. We need rules to live. But law is not always fair. Even today there is law that violates, law that deprives, law that extorts. Not all of them are in the best interest of people. And She did not hesitate to break the Norwegian law when she kidnaps her children (wait actually rescues) and crosses borders to Sweden and beats up a police officer when he tries to take them away. It was beautiful to watch her operate out of blind love. Again love and courage play a big part here that would make a simple home-maker like Mrs. Chatterjee do such brave acts, all out of love for her children. Even though it was not a well thought out plan, I would still applaud her for this act, as had she had enough social and family support she could have gotten her children back through this act. I would never encourage anyone to break the law and that is not the message here as that has its own bitter consequences, which Mrs. Chatterjee had to face as well. But my point here is to merely admire her brave and blind love that made her so such things. But anyone can fight for the right laws.
Assertiveness
She speaks up out of turn at a political meeting and questions the Indian government’s support in the situation. She was not afraid of the consequences and she did not know if she would get their support. But I noticed her intelligence here. She pre-planned her presence at the meeting and asked for help publicly and in front of the press. This finally opens the doors to the children being released from the holds of Norway.
Persistence
Even when all her efforts backfired, she never gave up. Because she knew she was the only true advocate for her children. She knocks all doors relentlessly. She did her part. For the children whose voice will not stand a chance.
Taking action against injustice
The most important lesson for me here was that, It is easier to avoid conflict by taking no action in the pretext of maintaining peace but extreme situations require action that invites conflict from all sides and we need to muster the courage to fight back.
Right intentions will always be blessed with victory at the end against all odds.
Hats off to the real hero… Sagarika- an inspiration to all.
An excellent movie that I recommend watching!
# realheroesdontwearcapes
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