Oscars 2024: Ranjit, a Jharkhand-based farmer who was featured in the Priyanka Chopra-backed documentary 'To Kill A Tiger', also attended the ceremony
To Kill a Tiger is directed by Delhi-born Nisha Pahuja. (Pic/IANS)
Oscars 2024: Today was all about the Oscars; people were winning big at the ceremony, and every other detail from the event was a headline. Among all the guests who attended the grand award function in LA, there was one who caught our eye. It was Ranjit, a Jharkhand-based farmer who was featured in the Priyanka Chopra-backed documentary 'To Kill A Tiger', also attended the ceremony.
When Ranjit, who was till then looking after his rice fields in one corner of Jharkhand, decided to stand up against his village and fight for his daughter after she was gang-raped in 2017, he was told, "You can't kill a tiger by yourself."
Recounting this conversation towards the end of New Delhi-born Indian Canadian filmmaker Nisha Pahuja's Oscar-nominated documentary feature, 'To Kill A Tiger,' Ranjit says with steely determination, "But I replied, 'I'll show you how to kill a tiger all by yourself.' And so, I did."
'To Kill A Tiger' may have lost out Ranjit had the time of his life that he had never imagined. Dressed in the regulation black tuxedo and bow tie, he was there at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles for the 96th Academy Awards, soaking in the glitz and glamour of the most-anticipated event in global cinema.
He may never be able to get over the trauma of his daughter's rape, but for Ranjit, it was the final vindication of his lonely battle against the odds piled up by an insensitive system. His daughter, who is now 20 years old, has also moved far away from her past as she nurtures the dream of becoming a policewoman fighting to protect women like her.
For Pahuja, whose previous documentary, 'The World Before Her,' was nominated for an Emmy, it took eight years of hard work to put together 'To Kill A Tiger.'
The documentary has won her 19 awards (not the Oscar, sadly), besides being picked up by Netflix and getting the support of the leading lights of the global Indian diaspora -- Dev Patel, Mindy Kaling, poet Rupi Kaur, Dr. Atul Gawande, and Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
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(With Inputs IANS)