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I sent my daughter Chaitra, a law undergraduate student for this work. My intention was to make her aware of the on-ground reality. My intention was to make her understand the real problems of the people, I wanted her to talk to people in villages, interact with them. Kailash used to shoot her conversations and interactions with rural women. He also shot the current situation of the villages and small towns. After shooting many visits and conversations, Kailash made a documentary named 'Towards the change'. It was also made in Marathi and was edited by Raju Dongare from Satara. We had talked to nearly 250 women, their husbands and their mother in laws. It was enough to understand their mentality. The core issue was that people didn't want a girl child at any cost. We had earlier assumed that they wanted a boy and that's why they didn't want a girl but the reason wasn't that simple. Insecurity and dowry were the major reasons behind this mentality. Families didn't care about women related crimes at all but they were more worried about their family image. They would let the woman suffer until she could take it but they don't want her suffrage to go out in society because that will spoil their family's status. We met a woman who have been conceiving girl children-shockingly have accepted co-wives. Completely illegal, but when the entire society is blindfolded with misogyny, the law makes little sense. We met many women who had undergone 8-9 abortions to get rid of girls in the hope of conceiving a boy. One woman caught cancer due to constant abortions! The situation was scary, to say the least. It was a war against the women in India. Our spine was shivering, listening to all those women. The ease with which they were talking was more frightening. They knew that regular abortions were deteriorating their health, they also knew that Sonography tests to determine the sex of the baby were illegal but again the society was against women and that was the core issue. Another surprising thing was that they knew about our previous sting operations in Beed and Parali, but still, they were talking to us without any filters. They wanted a boy child badly, even the old people who knew that their sons hardly take care of them, were rooting for a boy, and they were literally ready to do anything for it.
