Innocence lost

>> Maya is Digvijay Singh’s disturbing story
of ritual rape in India

by JOANNE LATIMER

Digvijay Singh showed up for this interview fully armed. He brandished a dossier of research material proving that sacrificial rape—the subject of his film, titled Maya—is more than a freak occurrence in India. The 28-year-old director wants to be clear about one thing: sexual abuse with religious sanction isn’t something that we can dismiss as fringe behaviour in a developing nation.

“But don’t trust me, read the documents,” implored Singh, handing over some photocopies during the Montreal Film Festival last summer. Singh’s research is a collection of excerpts from NGO reports and newspaper articles indicating that untouchable female children are routinely forced to become “Maidens of God” by losing their virginity to the temple priest.

With this contentious topic, there’s little doubt that Singh will face with some criticism from Canada’s Indian community. The crowd’s reaction at Montreal’s World and Toronto’s International Film Festivals was one of interest, but skepticism as well.

“It’s not like everyone in India is doing this,” said Singh, defending his beautifully shot feature. “People are smart enough to know that if you’re talking about Bombay or Delhi, it isn’t an issue. But child abuse itself, my real subject, is in Bombay, Boston, Beverly Hills and Bosnia.”

Nice dodge. The statistics are elusive and Singh steers the topic into a wider realm. Of course child abuse is universal, but that’s not the same thing as claiming sacrificial rape is prevalent in some Indian states.

“It comes from a basic lack of education,” said Singh. But if this is the case, why is Maya’s family so comfortably middle-class in the film? “Well, yes, it’s predominantly a lower caste problem, but I intentionally put the story in a middle-class setting because I wanted it to translate across cultures on a wider level. I don’t want people to stay in their comfort zone by dismissing it as something that only happens in some poor third-world country.”
No chance of that. In the film, Maya (Nitya Shetty) enjoys an idyllic childhood, living with her wealthy aunt and uncle and getting into mischief with her young cousin. When Maya gets her period, however, the family shifts into overdrive, preparing to host a village feast for the ceremony to celebrate her impending womanhood. Her aunt and uncle exchange a few worried glances and there’s a sinister meeting with the village priest that’ll set your hair on end.

“I have one newspaper article that convinces most people,” said Singh. “It’s dated December 30, 2000, when we were actually shooting the film in Andhra Pradesh. It’s about an NGO that rescued three girls in a nearby village from being initiated by their priest. Sometimes the girl is sacrificed to a landowner or the maternal uncle. That’s the scariest part of the movie: we’re not just making this up.” :

Maya opens Friday, March 22