Ramprasad ki Tehrvi

Bauji’s entire family comes under one roof for 13 days after he passes away. We get a glimpse of their dynamics, politics and insecurities as each one of them is on their journey to discover their own selves and truth.

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SYNOPSIS

According to the Hindu traditions and rituals, after the death of a person, certain customs are to be performed for thirteen days, known as ‘Tehrvi’. This story talks about the truth behind these thirteen days. It is a satire on the traditions and the rituals of our Indian society.

Every kind of relationship has its own truth. But with some close relations, we are not really given any choice, love, respect, and care become an expectation and a responsibility rather than a personal expression. In playing the formal characters enforced on us, we tend to forget to say ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ in these relations. With time, it becomes difficult to speak the unspoken but emotions are felt more deeply after reaching a certain age. We are lost in trying to match our notes (sur) with the world, never bothering to try and find our own unique sur. The day we find our voice, we start living again.

Bauji’s wish to have his family under one roof is fulfilled after his death. His slightly whimsical notions about life are understood by his wife after he has passed away. We understand the importance of things only in retrospect, we miss people when they are long gone. The film speaks about understanding our own selves, about not taking our relations for granted and about being grateful for the time we have had and will have.

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DIRECTOR’S NOTE

The topic of death has always been a matter of debate and discussion among humans. With death comes different traditions and rituals based on the society and community we live in, from Jazz Funeral in the West, where the grieving members strike a balance between mourning and joy, to the Sky Burial in Tibet and Mongolia where the dead are left to decay on their own.

In Indian Hindu tradition, the death of a person requires customs and prayers to be performed for thirteen days (known as Tehrvi), by the family members and loved ones of the deceased. Though this period may seem as a time of immense mourning and sadness, it is only when we dig deeper we understand about the human psyche.

In my film, Ram Prasad Ki Tehrvi, after the death of Babu Ji, the head of the family, his kids, in laws and grandchildren come together under one roof to mourn his death. Ram Prasad’s family also looks like a close-knit family grieving the loss of their father, but as we delve deeper we understand each character’s own emotional turmoil and their life problems. In this film I have also tried to highlight the importance of death and the resulting loss. The void they leave behind is unimaginable and how we value them once they are taken away from our world forever. In the end this film will be a gentle reminder for all the viewers to understand that the beauty of life is that it will never come again.

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