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Aishwarya Rai’s latest movie, Provoked has not remained true to the real life story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, the abused Punjabi housewife. The movie was first shown at Cannes Film Festival. Ahluwalia was sentenced life imprisonment for killing her husband.

It was the "Southall Black Sisters," an NGO of South Asian woman that gathered support for her. After seeing the movie, the Southall Black Sisters, especially, Pragna Patel and Rahila Gupta, who were closely related to Kiranjit, complained that the movie did not portray the true incident. I am quoting from the report published in AIM magazine:

But Southall Black Sisters have now criticised the film for being riddled with "factual and legal inaccuracies". Two members from the group: Pragna Patel and Rahila Gupta, said it took "a lot of artistic license".

After seeing the film Ms Patel told the Observer newspaper yesterday: "I cringe a bit because I was so closely involved. Sometimes I think people should rise to the challenge of reflecting real life better. My view is that the reality is far more interesting."

Rahila Gupta, who co-wrote Circle of Light, added: "It's a shame that film is an artistic form in which you have to make a fair amount of compromises.

The main problem with the movie is that it portrayed Deepak Ahluwalia as an alcoholic which is not true. The characters of Pragna Patel and Rahila Gupta have been merged together and turned into one character in the movie which was played by actress Nandita Das. Last but not least, in the movie Americanized legal terminologies have been used.

Director Jagmohan Mundhra defended the movie by saying that no story is true story because the concept of truth is not there. When the incidents took place nobody was there to see what actually happened. What is here is a recollection of people’s memory.

I am not a serious film critic but I feel that when a movie based on a true incident like this is made then the film maker should not corrupt the facts and misrepresent the story. Kiranjit’s story has great significance because "Regina vs. Ahluwalia" case single handedly changed England’s legal system. Jagmohan Mundhra has made a huge mistake by corrupting the story.

Related articles:

AIM magazine

Wikipedia