{"id":8126,"date":"2018-03-30T18:15:50","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T18:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/?p=8126"},"modified":"2018-03-30T18:19:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-30T18:19:52","slug":"kerala-dalit-womans-struggles-to-be-bollywood-fare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/?p=8126","title":{"rendered":"Kerala Dalit woman\u2019s struggles to be Bollywood fare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Fraser Scott with Chitralekha and her husband Sreekanth. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Briton writes script based on auto driver Chitralekha from Kannur<\/h2>\n
\n

He was googling to get preliminary details about Dalit millionaires in India as part of a film project he was entertaining in his mind. That search finally led him to E. Chitralekha, a Dalit autorickshaw driver from Edat, near Payynnur here, who had been in the news since she was allegedly attacked by local Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers and her struggle highlighting the plight of her family.<\/p>\n

Fraser Scott, script writer and art seller from the United Kingdom, has now put on hold his curiosity about Dalit millionaires as he is busy writing the script of a story based on Chitralekha for a Bollywood film.<\/p>\n

The idea of writing the script based on the life of a poor but resolute Dalit woman has got an impetus when his announcement of the plan in his Instagram account drew the attention of filmmaker Shekhar Kapoor, his family friend. Mr. Kapoor found the story of Chitralekha, who has been earning a livelihood by driving her autorickshaw, amazing.<\/p>\n

He commented that Chitralekha\u2019s is a \u201cstory of courage no less than that of\u00a0Bandit Queen<\/em>.\u201d The reference was to his own 1994 film on Phoolan Devi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI visited Kannur recently to interview Chitralekha and will visit her again next week for another round of meeting before the script is ready,\u201d Mr. Scott told\u00a0The Hindu\u00a0<\/em>over phone from Mumbai.<\/p>\n

The script would be completed in a month, he said adding that four Bollywood production companies had already shown interest in making a film on the story.<\/p>\n

Mr. Scott in his Instagram page says that Chitralekha \u201cfought against unbearable hardship to drive an autorikshaw\u201d referring to the alleged attack on her and the torching of her vehicle.<\/p>\n

Roopesh Kumar, an activist who is working in the film field, served as Mr. Scott\u2019s local link to connect to Chitralekha and her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought that my life can be the story of a film,\u201d said Chitralekha who is excited about the project. The film would be a recognition of my struggle, she said.<\/p>\n

She is currently living with her husband in a rented house at Kattampally here and the construction of her house on a five-cent plot granted by the previous United Democratic Front government is in progress.<\/p>\n

She had left her home at Edat as she found it hard to live there. \u201cLocal CPI(M) workers are not allowing me to live there,\u201d she said. The previous UDF government\u2019s decision to rehabilitate her followed her sit-in agitation in front of the Collectorate here for 122 days in 2015.<\/p>\n

source: http:\/\/www.thehindu.com \/ The Hindu \/ Home> News> States> Kerala \/ by Special Correspondent \/ Kannur – March 30th, 2018<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Briton writes script based on auto driver Chitralekha from Kannur He was googling to get preliminary details about Dalit millionaires in India as part of a film project he was entertaining in his mind. That search finally led him to E. Chitralekha, a Dalit autorickshaw driver from Edat, near Payynnur here, who had been in … Continue reading Kerala Dalit woman\u2019s struggles to be Bollywood fare<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artsculture-entertainment","category-inspiration-positive-news-and-features","category-world-opinion"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8126"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8132,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126\/revisions\/8132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}