By Uttama
If I tell you it’s about an alien, you won’t watch it, and I’ll be lying. If I tell you it’s about a family, you’ll think it’s boring, and I’ll be giving you only half the truth. But if you see it and feel it for yourself, you’ll wonder why it took you so long.
I’m talking to Sona Jain, director and writer of For Real.
“This film is my attempt to hold a mirror up to society, asking it to acknowledge the most widespread form of child abuse that remains socially acceptable till date. To my mind, subjecting a child to an unhappy home environment is in one word, abusive. It runs the risk of the child in question never reaching his/her full potential.”
The synopsis will tell you it’s a film about a child who thinks an alien has come in place of her mother. But because I witnessed the adult reaction to this, I’ll tell you it’s a film that touches a part of yourself you probably haven’t recognized in years.
As magical as it seems, there’s a reason the film’s titled For Real. It is a story that uses a far-reaching concept to display perfectly the imperfections so close to home.
The world, and an unhappy home, is seen through the eyes of a little girl Shruti, “whose only motivation is to see her mother happy.
“A child is very vulnerable to the dynamics that take place within the whole family,” Sona says. “Because she doesn’t have any barriers up against the parents. And if God forbid, parents are even to damage her psyche in any way…it may exist that the child will never physically remember, but the psyche would remember, her emotional body would remember, and she would play out. She’s going to bring that to her work, to her relationships, and when she has children she’s going to pass that on as well.
“It’s just mind boggling to me that special interest groups, or really extreme forms of child abuse are called child abuse but this all pervasive constant chipping away of a child’s sense of well being, and creating unhappy homes, is almost like bad manners to bring it up.”
I wonder if this is because parents don’t understand the long-term effects even the smallest actions have on their children.
“I really don’t think they realize it,” Sona agrees. “And I think that may be a more South Asian phenomenon, or it’s more pervasive in the South Asian community than otherwise.
“You know it was very important for me to not have a villain in For Real. Because none of these adults are bad people. They actually love this child; literally they’d give their life for this child. And it is when well-meaning parents end up causing damage—you know that’s what I want to call attention to. Not the ones who are actively abusing in a more traditional sense of the word. It really is about putting the child first in every scenario, and don’t have a kid if you’re not ready to do that.”
But in defense of parents, is it even possible to always create a happy home environment? Amidst conflicting identities, careers, and societal and cultural obligations, is this a realistic expectation?”
“Yes, yes,” Sona insists. “Because you know children are so resilient; they’re so trusting, they’re so forgiving. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be a bad mood and there won’t be a moment of ‘Darling you really need to leave me alone right now’. But just be really honest with yourself, and explain things to them, and don’t make them worry about things that they cannot control.
“They see you in a bad mood, and they know it’s coming from work, and they have no control over your work environment; they will worry so much about you…you don’t even know but your child is so busy in their head trying to fix everything, and that’s too much work for a child to do. The child has to really enjoy the experience of just being a joyful child, and if you rob the child away from that joy then they will never know that joy, or they would have to work so much harder as adults to tap into that joy.
“I’m constantly amazed by one reaction that comes up after For Real is screened, which is when people tell me, ‘I don’t know why I cried because I really don’t remember being that old.’
“…If you don’t remember your childhood, it wasn’t probably such a great place for you, or such a safe place for you, and you forget it. But the thing is the emotional body remains and the feelings shall come up and play out, unbeknownst to you completely—in your own relationships, in your own work environment, and that’s why you cried while watching the film. Because your brain may not remember, but somewhere your body remembers it.”
Although we’re looking at a child’s perspective in For Real, a great struggle is taking place within Shruti’s mother. She feels a sense of loss, of her identity being washed away within a marriage, diluted within a family. As individuals within a South Asian family system, do we often overlook our own personal dreams?
“You know I have to say, because I’ve had the privilege of showing this film the world over, and even though it seems like such an Asian stereotype…I don’t think it’s only limited to Asian women. I think it is a very female concept because what happens is we women, we enjoy nurturing and we enjoy compassion and that’s also a way, by projecting those, that we love ourselves. And we keep doing that and turning ourselves into goddesses, in really a beautiful way, but without showing that same nurture and compassion towards ourselves. And then a day would come when you stop and say, ‘Yo, I’m really unhappy, and you turn and you blame it on your spouse, or really the nearest person you can blame it on…
“As a South Asian girl…when I was finishing grad school in a couple of years and my parents started saying marriage and stuff like that…I was so nervous that I would lose my artistic voice if I went down that path too early. So I took those fears and I projected them on someone who’s ten years older, and I think that’s how I came up with that character. She was very much a projection of my fears if domestic life happened too early for me, before my artistic voice found a home.”
I know I’m thankful Sona did not lose that voice, because it speaks so truthfully in For Real. With its London premier at the 13th London Asian Film Festival, Sona wants people to “remove their baggage when they see it and allow the film to open them up. That’s the magic power I would wish. I would like it to just literally go and just touch the child in every human being. Because it’s all we need.”
