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ENTERTAINMENT EYE OCTOBER 04, 2024 | The Indian Eye 42

TIFF 2024

Santosh explores women, corruption

and the police system in India

Santosh works the case of the missing girl under the knowing wing of her superior, Inspector

Sharma, brought to life in a riveting, multi-dimensional performance by Sunita Rajwar

RENU MEHTA

Toronto
n her breakout first fiction film,
Sandhya Suri presents the story
Iof Santosh (Shahana Goswami),
a rookie woman cop’s life-changing
initiation to the police force in rural
India. Her husband, a policeman, has
died while on duty and his job is given go out with police during the day,
to his wife Santosh where she is con- and in the evening, we’d sit around
fronted with rank corruption, incom- talking about the script in relation to
petence, prejudice, male colleagues, everything we’d just seen and felt,”
and moral questions. explains the director.
In her first investigation, San-
“It was a very immersive experi-
tosh confronts the stark reality of ence both watching the police in their
police procedures when she tries to daily work and chatting with women
solve the rape and murder of a teen- police to get more inner insight,”
age girl. The story narrates the in- says Goswami who found that pro-
ner awakening of a sheltered widow In her first investigation, Santosh confronts the stark reality of police procedures when she cess indispensable. “For me, it really
learning to navigate the light and of tries to solve the rape and murder of a teenage girl (Courtesy: TIFF) pointed out the difference between
her own rising personal power. No the pre-conceived ideas I had of what
one seems to care about the case but Suri joined together for an intensive essential to me that Shahana and policewomen’s lives are like and the
Santosh follows it up. three-week period of shadowing real Sunita spend time with police. So, we reality.”
As clues unravel, Santosh discov-
When she becomes a police-
ers her internal transformation and policewomen for the film. “It was went through a process where we’d woman, Santosh is perhaps for the
her idea of who she might become in first time in her life validated for her
her new reality.
intelligence, observes Goswami. “She
discovers sides to herself that she’s
Santosh works the case of the never before encountered. Having

missing girl under the knowing power is completely new to her.”
According to director Suri, those
wing of her superior, Inspector first days of heading out on the beat
Sharma, brought to life in a are liberating, then upsetting. “Com-
ing from the documentary world, I
riveting, multi-dimensional per- suppose I’m always digging for the

formance by Sunita Rajwar. truth behind what really is going on,
which is the basis of the police pro-
cedural,” says the writer and director.
Sharma is everything Santosh “But Indian cinema is also full of
never expected to be—fiercely inde- police dramas, so I knew I didn’t want
pendent, able to maneuver through a Santosh to feel like those films in tex-
male-dominated universe, and confi- ture or tone. At first, I thought, what
dent in her personal code. Yet Shar- do I know about plotting a thriller?
ma can be equally unsettling in her But what I always understood is that
casual brutality, her gaming of the Inspector Sharma is everything Santosh never expected to be—fiercely independent, this story had to be told from the in-
system, and her aggressive pursuit of able to maneuver through a male-dominated universe, and confident in her personal code side out. The most important thing to
Santosh’s affection. (Courtesy: TIFF) me was that the audience’s connection
Goswami and Rajwar along with with Santosh be as direct as possible.”

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