Centered on the near-magical life of two widowed sisters, Aunty Sudha Aunty Radha is a 2019 award-winning documentary directed by Tanuja Chandra. The film is an excellent example of how a simple idea of documenting the daily routine of two sisters could touch upon several themes like sisterhood, female coping, mortality, and dependence. Chandra has known her aunts for years and has always had a special bond with them but it wasn’t until they moved to Lahra together with around six house helpers that they occurred to Chandra as a subject for her next documentary.
A Dalit, two Muslims, an extremely poor woman, and a woman who left her home in Calcutta were taking care of the two sisters and living together like a family. The film takes the route of both Radha and Sudha talking about living with each other. Radha shares about her marriage when she was merely 17 years old and they lived together till his death. She speaks about how she has traveled to other countries in the world but has spent some of the happiest times of her life living with Sudha. The younger sister, Sudha candidly opens up that she has never felt deprived for never having children and that she loved her sibling’s children as her own.
Ironically for Radha and Sudha, living in Lahra makes them feel more liberated in life than they ever felt in Delhi. They were living their autumn years independently without any boundaries or restrictions while enjoying the comforts of rural India.
Chandra’s vision for the film was to capture them as they are; she is seen interacting with them in the film too. It helped them to be natural in front of the camera. “They weren’t aware of the cameras at all”, said Chandra while speaking about her Aunty Sudha and Aunty Radha. As far as they were concerned, they were ecstatic about having to spend time with their niece.
Later in the film, we also see the house workers reveal aunty Sudha’s habit of grumbling about the food and how it is extremely difficult to please her. But also treated them as their family at the same time in small ways like calling their house help ‘bahu’ and staying with them morning to night.
Chandra also mentions that this way of leading a simple life will gradually die out as there are more generations to come, which made her narrate the story of her two grannies to leave an impression of a tranquil rural setting in the viewer’s minds. To capture a world that is in danger of fading innately became the meaning of the film.
Great job Minnie 💕💕💗💗😘😘