Driving With Selvi inspires change as director Elisa Paloschi and protagonist Selvi come to the end of the first stage of their audience engagement and social impact campaign. By Angela Paljor
India’s first woman driver Selvi is not just content with herself being in command over the toughest vehicle called life. She is out on a mission to empower women by simply telling them her story of surmounting odds with a film. After 25 days of spanning the north and south of India in a bus, and beaming her film in hamlets and courtyards, she rides out with her daughter in tow, smile in place, urging us to be a partner in her crusade.
Driving With Selvi, a documentary set in the backdrop of south India, opens with statistics about forced marriage and how 700 million women worldwide were married before they turned 18. Around 250 million of them were married before they turned 15. Canadian filmmaker Elisa Paloschi then takes a jump to capturing 10 years of Selvi, who rises from the ashes of India’s patriarchal culture — a former child bride and a victim of domestic abuse to become south India’s first woman driver.
The film, having the ability to inspire and initiate dialogue and create awareness about eliminating violence against women, has been screened at over 100 international film festivals. Selvi has travelled with the film to over 15 cities abroad, including Canada and the USA.
The film revolves around Selvi who recaps her life from the age of 14, a month after her first period. That was the time when she was married with a dowry consisting of a pair of earrings and some household utensils. If becoming a victim of child marriage was not enough, her husband exploited her sexually and forced her to engage in sexual activities with others in return for money. The 18-year-old, tired and hopeless, escaped from her dreadful nightmare looking for salvation. While she initially planned to end her life by jumping in front of a bus, she retracted at the moment of reckoning. That was the turning point as she decided to reclaim her life, add value to it and find a way to a girl’s home. “I waited for a bus because I wanted to throw myself under it, but when the bus came, I raised my hand and got on it instead,” she tells the camera. “If I died, I wouldn’t be able to prove myself. That is why I ran away.” Selvi decides her own fate. Empowered by her past she finds her voice — becoming an independent woman and acquiring livelihood skills. Years later, she became the first woman taxi driver in Karnataka, met her husband and started a family.
As the film dwells on various social evils — child and forced marriage, gender-based violence, gender equality, women’s agency and commercial driver training for women — Selvi’s bus tour aims to bring forth change at the grassroot level, through screenings, education and development of bursaries for livelihood training and job opportunities.
The primary target audience remains the marginalised women and girls, residing in communities where there is a greater risk of child marriage and domestic violence. Making them aware of the various avenues that are open to them, Selvi feels that her contribution towards the initiative has been limited. However, she believes that with regular screenings across the country, more women will get the courage to break free from their bondage. “I led a restricted life between school and home. After being married at such an early age, I witnessed the ugly realities of the world. When I expected my mother and brother to stand by me, they simply turned their back. But I have been able to come out of my dark past and I want to share my story to help other girls who are facing the same problems to do so. But I can’t do it alone. Society as a whole along with the government should look into such cases and come up with more opportunities,” Selvi tells us proudly.
Today she looks out for her daughter and hopes to give her the upbringing every child deserves and shield her from the horrors she was exposed to.
Says director Paloschi: “We went from village to village, meeting different groups of girls and to watch Selvi interact with them, share her life experience was remarkable. And these girls were able to relate themselves to her and see themselves on the screen. Often girls from marginalised communities and far off villages don’t have the kind of opportunities that you and me get. So, it’s essential to expose the communities to such films.
“One girl came up to us after the screening and acknowledged the importance of watching Selvi defy all social expectations, moving beyond the pain she had experienced to create a new life. Some even wanted their parents to watch the film and understand the need to give the girls equal opportunities.”
The campaign is at the end of the first stage and the purpose of the bus tour was to work with organisations and test-run the screenings — to see if Selvi’s story has the potential to connect with girls and become a much larger campaign. “Fortunately, we found that it does and we did 30 screening over 25 days. Now we are looking for organisational partners, educational and government institutes who would take the film and our educational materials across the length and breadth of the country,” adds Paloschi who had also, in a sense, run away, leaving her life as an interactive content producer in Italy to go on a yoga retreat.
After volunteering to work at the Odanadi, an organisation dedicated to rehabilitate people affected by human trafficking, they asked her to shoot a short film for their organisation. Paloschi became “enamoured” with Selvi, and ended up following her over the next 10 years to film the documentary.