The World Before Her: Two faces In Today's India

The World Before Her is a 90-minute documentary on the different lives and goals of young women in India. Top choices and attitudes of women in India are laid in Nisha Pahuja's softly shocking film. On the one hand, there's an immensely famous Miss India contest, which can turn the fate of a girl overnight into a superstar in this nation. But the reality has been served quietly that just a handful of aspirants get to try out, as we see in a beauty camp for 20 girls at a hotel in Mumbai, where sexism and change of state are ordinary, and Botox and skin-bleaching are recommended even for teens. If a girl doesn't dream, says a contestant in Miss India pageant, then "you don't know what to aim for."

On the other hand, there are fashion fewer instructors of Durga Vahini, the women's organ of Hindu fundamentalism (Vishwa Hindu Parishad). They have their camp teaching sessions planned to make women much more empowered than men and also to lecture hatred against other religions, by promoting Hinduism and giving examples of destruction caused by extremists of other faiths.

Both camps believe that they are creating the women for a new India, the world's biggest democracy. The documentary brightly elaborates on the portrayal of two teenage girls from immensely different places, backgrounds, and lives in India.

Ruhi Singh comes from the modern city of Jaipur. She is willing to put herself in the hands of hardhearted makeover artists, hoping that it may improve her chances of becoming Miss India. While, in contrast, Prachi Trivedi, a Hindu fundamentalist who thinks herself as a gender-neutral person is shown. She works and teaches at the Durga Vahini woman's camp, where the educational activity is considered to "fight for religion and safeguarding the religion." Young girls are taught martial arts and firearm handling, the custom of getting married and having kids, and the horrifying pedagogy of protecting "The Land of India" against religion other than Hindu.

One of the camp leaders states that women should be wedded by 18, otherwise by age 25 "you can't quiet them." The scene inside the Durga Vahini camp was an achievement for the filmmaker. She is the first moviemaker allowed to shoot the place and its teachings. The best part of this film is that it never judges. In reality, the filmmaker does not need to decide, since her camera reveals all, including a hard-and-fast father's casual admittance that he punished his rebel daughter's foot with hot metal, to teach her a life long lesson.

The film leaves us questioning about where India is moving on these two extreme paths. It makes you wonder how these kinds of thoughts come inside the minds of just adults. The film looks into the complex and conflicting environment for young girls in India by profiling two young women participating in two very different types of training camps with a different thought process.

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