By Ashish Kumar

I read about the marriage of Gaurav and Mohini on the internet in 2014. After reading it, I thought that if I made a documentary on such a crucial topic, it would be a great initiative for society. It would let the world know about the hardships an acid survivor has to face, and how much their lives change after the attack.

For this, I tried approaching many NGOs. But none of them were ready to help me in any way. So I went through a lot of similarly themed documentaries on the internet. I watched all of them.

One of them was the Pakistani Oscar-winning documentary film by Sharmeen Obid-Chinoy on Acid Attacks named Saving Face. I researched on it thoroughly to help me understand their struggles. I then found out about a Acid Survivors Group; they were carrying out a protest in November at Jantar Mantar, Delhi. So decided to attend it. That is how I found my first survivor, Chandrahash Mishra. Before getting to know about him, I had a misconception that there were only girl survivors, but after meeting him I got to know that it’s not a gender-biased crime. Anyone can be a victim of this horrific crime.

After this, I gradually met other survivors for my film, which I titled ‘Beauty of Life’. I told them all about my initiative and they all got ready to be a part of it. When I started my film, I had no money and no crew at all. I told a friend of mine about my project and he was ready to shoot it for free. Everyone in my crew has helped me complete this film for free. I am fortunate to find such helpful crew members, who didn’t ask for a penny while shooting.

My friend and I shot the film by personally meeting all the survivors along with their families. The best part: all the survivors in my film are happily married now. In a society filled with demons and criminals, there are also some good souls who believe that outer beauty has nothing to do with how pure a soul is internally. Hats off to all of them who started their families with acid survivors. It takes great courage on both sides to carry on — something that we may never understand, but could at least attempt to acknowledge, through films like these.

My film is to let everyone know about what a survivor has to go through — right from the time of the attack, to its painful treatments, to people staring curiously at their faces all the time, to some even boycotting them completely. I found out that it is very difficult for the survivors to carry out a normal life thereafter. Not many can get past simply sympathising with them. Every time before meeting them, I did my homework by reading about them in detail. This helped me learn some of their personality traits too.

I just hope that this small initiative — through its trailer, and its presence at film festivals across the world — helps people understand the complexities of their life, and maybe change their attitude towards them.