Character Sketch

Character sketches

Doll Sketches

Shot breakdown

Guddiya

Scene 1

Shot-1

Lighting: evening light

Setting- Inside the room

Camera: close up shot of the family album

Action: she opens the album.

Voice Over: Grandpa and grandma, I can’t imagine they ever looked like kids. They were always old for me, as if born that way. That is mamma, in my grandpa’s hands. So young and fragile. She was the favorite child of my grandparents amongst all the brothers and sisters.

Action: she moves her hand slowly on the photographs and then turns the page

Vo: ma and pa, when they found each other and decided to get married. Picture perfect!

She looks so scared, yet excited to start the new chapter of her life with a stranger. Pa, standing next to her, as if in assurance to never leave her side. (After a pause)….Why would he, she always gave him whatever he wanted.

Action: turns the page

VO: That’s me behind pa. daddy’ daughter.

This is at nanital I believe. My sister was born by then.

Action: page turn

VO: this is me and him, our wedding pictures. It was a beautiful wedding. (Voice becomes sad now)

Action: She turns the page..and the album is empty now.

VO: 5 years to our marriage and still these spaces are empty, just like me.

Shot-2

Action: She leaves the album on the bed and gets up. Swings the empty cradle next to her

Audio: sound of that toy which u hang on a cradle.

Shot4

Action: She serves a flower to the gods, kept on her shelf. And touches the many sacred threads she has tied on her arm.

VO: They say, I might have annoyed the gods in my previous birth.

Shot 3

Vo: 6 months of constant medication.

Action- she walks ahead, and stops at an open cupboard which, is full of medical reports and medicines.

Vo I smell of them now and remind him of that emptiness……that’s what he told me when he asked for a divorce

Action: she picks up a bottle of perfume from the shelf and closes it. The door has a mirror attached. she sprays perfume on herself and then smells her hands.

Audio- sound of children playing.

Action- she looks in the direction from where the sound is coming ie outside the window.

Cut 2- Present- Shot 6

Cut to- mid shot of her looking out of the window.

VO: I understand, after all I could not provide him with the most imp happiness, the happiness of being a father.

Shot8 - Cut to- camera @ the children playing downstairs. ( POV shot)

Shot-9 Cut to the close up of the window from outside the building.

Slow zoom out, fade 2 black.

Scene-2

Shot-1

Setting: street

Action: she is walking with a small carton towards her doll shop.

Camera- very slow side pan, following her.

Shot-2

Cut to: she enters the shop, opens the carton and takes out the new dolls and places them on the front shelf and sits, waiting for the customers.

Shot-3

Action: she is sitting inside her shop and stitching dolls. Many dolls which are just finished are kept by her side, on the table, along with cloth and needle.

Shot-4

Cut to: Mid shot- capture the doll only(the one that she is making)

Shot-5

Cut to: Mid Shot- Her face and the doll- Action: She keeps the thread between her teeth and breaks it.

Shot-6

Looks at the doll- Mid shot of both the doll and the lady.

Shot-7

Cut to: the doll, as if smiling. She caresses it, straightens her hair.

Shot-8

Cut to: the lady- She then looks at the other dolls and then back again to this new doll.

Shot-9

Camera: close up shot of both- Action: she kisses the doll

Shot 10

Cam @ the doll: the doll calls out “mother”.

Shot -11

Camera: cuts 2 gauri- suprised.

Shot -12

Camera: Mid shot

Action- The doll opens her small arms and calls her mother once again. They both hug each other for few seconds.

Shot 13

Cut to the mid shot of them looking at each other.

Shot -14

Cut to- the doll- Action- Gauri tickles the doll daughter on which the doll laughs and giggles.

Shot -15

Camera: long shot, slow zoom in - Action: Towards the evening next shot- she and the doll daughter are lying down in the park and looking at the sky.

Shot 14- they both staring outside the window looking at the stars.

Shot -16

Towards end- they both lying down in the bed and the mother is reading out a story to her doll daughter.

Shot -17

The door of the shop opens and 2 customers come inside.

Action: She gets up with a jerk. Looks at her side for the doll daughter. Looks at the other side n notices now an object. She takes a deep breath, wipes a tear and smiles at the customers.

Cut to- Lighting- late evening time

Shot -18

Camera- long shot

Action: Customers leave the shop. She locks the door and turns the sign board to ‘closed now’ and then begins to walk back home with the doll daughter in one hand.

Scene-3

Takes a turn…next street now.

Shot-1

She is walking.

Shot-2

Cut to: her leg, Action: Suddenly a ball hits her leg.

Shot-3

Camera: back to the lady. She looks back.

Shot-4

Cut to. Camera behind the lady: A green gate opens and a small girl comes out running for the ball.

Shot-5

Cut to Gauri’s expression: very surprised as the girl looks very similar to the doll.

Shot-6

Over the shoulder shot: Gauri looks @ the doll in her hand.

Shot-7

Cut to girl: Action: By now she is standing in front of gauri with hopeful eyes at the ball.

Action: The girl is very shy, points @ the ball in her hand.

Shot-8

Cut to: close up of the ball being given.

Shot-9

Cut to: Mid shot of the girl: while taking the ball, the girl notices the doll in her hand.

Action: The kid stares at the doll and gasps in surprise. (she wants the doll)

Action :Gauri looks at the doll in her own hand, and with action asks the kid if she wants it.

Shot-10

Cut 2: the kid. Very excitedly nods her head.

Shot-11

Cut to: the doll being given to the kid.

Shot-12

Cut to: Long shot: Gauri starts to walk back home when suddenly her eyes fall upon an old rusted board lying at the corner left of the house.

Shot-13

Cut to: her face- tilts to the right side a little in order to read the board.

The board read “ Adoption centre”

She is very shocked now.

Shot-14

Cut to turn her head towards the girl who just entered the house.

Cut to gauri: very sad

Fade to black.

Scene 4-Close up shot

Setting- her room, Gauri sitting on the corner of her bed.

Repetition of the 1^st shot i.e. Photo album

Shot-1

She turns the page from where she had left last time. And we see many pictures of her and her adopted daughter with grandparents.

VO: I learnt that Anahita suffered from a weak heart, one of the reasons why she was left behind by her birth parents and also why she didn’t get a family till now.

Shot-2

We hear a voice calling her “mother”

Camera pans a little to the side of the bed. And we see the daughter playing with the dolls.

VO: it was as if we were meant for each other. Both suffered from heart aches….

Shot-3

Gauri bends down to kiss her fore head.

VO: but not anymore.

The end

Story

GUDDIYA

My story delves into the mind of a woman called Gauri, who cannot give birth. She blames herself for all this and thus continues to suppress her maternal feelings. The story also talks about how Adoption is another beautiful method to start a family.

Gauri belongs to a middle class family who after marriage discovers she can’t give birth to a child. She misses the feeling of mother hood and craves for a child of her own. Inspite of her regular visits to the doctor to cure the proelem and also her infinite visits to the temple, she couldn’t bear a child. God had different plans for her. Soon after all the treatments, the couple gave up. But her husband chooses a different path. He left the house, leaving behind papers of divorce for gauri. She didn’t complain, she knew that was to happen at some point of time, after all she couldn’t give the most important happiness , the happiness of being a father.

She owns a big shop of dolls, dolls which she stitches herself at home. She mainly spends her days making dolls or staring outside the window in the evening when little children come out to play. She feels happy when she hears their voices in the evening, giggling and laughing out loud. She had abstained herself from any kind of social gathering and hadn’t spoken to her own family for long. She was tired of the regular questions her family or other relatives would ask.

One day when she is in her shop, she makes a very pretty doll. Once completed she looked at it with envious eyes and caresses it. Suddenly the doll comes to life and calls her “mother”. She gets very surprised and hugs the doll immediately. She feels like god finally heard her prayers. The whole day she plays around with her new doll daughter till the time they get tired and fall off to sleep. suddenly the shop door opens and 2 customers come inside. Gauri wakes up with a jerk, looking around for her doll daughter. The doll is in her arms, but now an inanimate object. She stares at the doll, tear trickling down her cheek and then smiles at the customers.

Soon she shuts her shop and starts to walk back home. While walking back home, suddenly a ball hits her leg. she turns back. A little girl (around 4 years) comes out running from the house, for the ball. To Gauri’s surprise this girl looked exactly like the doll she had made, who had come alive in her dreams. She stares at the girl in astonishment. The girl picks up the ball and stares at the doll in Gauri’s hand with envious eyes. Gauri bends down and gives the child the new doll. The child happily takes the doll and runs inside the house to play with her new toy. Gauri smiles and starts to walk back to her place, when suddenly her eyes fell on a board, old and rusted, which was kept at the side of the house, as if it had been ignored for years. The board read, “Adoption center”.

Gauri was shocked, she thought why would anyone leave that beautiful child behind for adoption. She stands there for couple of seconds and then the screen turns black.

The last shot is the starting shot of the movie, where she is staring at her family pictures. The album is open at the same page ie. she and her husband’s photograph. She then flips the page and there are pictures of her and the new adopted daughter of hers. She flips further; we see the pictures of her and her daughter, with her parents or relatives.

VO: I learnt that Anahita suffered from a weak heart, one of the reasons why she was left behind by her birth parents and also why she didn’t get a family till now. It was as if we were meant for each other. Both suffered from heart aches…..but not anymore.

With such pictures at the side the credits flow vertically.

THE END