DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: CINEMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF INDIAN WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES IN THE DIASPORA (Pages 56-62) by Ms. Maria Lisa Mathew in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Any act of physical, mental or sexual violence and the forcible restriction of individual freedom and privacy carried out against individuals who have or had family or kinship ties or cohabit or dwell in the same house comes under the purview of domestic violence. The paper delves deep into this fundamental human rights violation as reflected in Deepa Mehta’s Videsh and Kamal’s Gaddama. Videsh gives a graphic account of the spousal and familial abuse that its heroine Chand confronts in a foreign land whereas Gaddama delineates the physical and mental abuse endured by Aswathy; an Indian woman working as a domestic help in the Middle East. In both the texts we have immigrant heroines who are victims of domestic abuse, economic exploitation and a legal system beyond their comprehension. Patriarchy justified by the ideology of sexism legitimizes this violence by making the victims believe that there is nothing unusual in the situation. Both the films chronicle the struggles of its female protagonists in escaping the hostile living environments in an alien land so as to return to their homelands. The paper aims to offer a rare glimpse into the crucial human rights issues of the Indian immigrant women in the aforesaid movies. Key words: domestic violence, diaspora, patriarchy