Eyes of Stone

Ninteen-year-old Shanta was married off at the age of 10 to NandaLal, a truck driver 10 years her senior. She became a mother when she was 12, lost a child and now has two young sons. She has been seriously ill now for more than half of her married life: she suffers debilitating headaches, body aches, fever, lack of appetite, and lethargy, and neither doctors nor shamans have been able to cure her. Now that she is back living with her parents, she makes the expensive weekly pilgrimage to the temple of the Goddess Bhankya Mata, the all-powerful mother who can ward off the evil gaze of the that has her in its grip. But what will happen when her husband returns to take her back to her normal life? Shanta’s story is a testament to both the resilience of rural women in the Indian district of Bhilwara, Rajastan, and the tragedy of their underprivileged status. Their witchcraft and exorcism rituals offer space for faith, rebellion and healing within a strictly patriarchal community. observes Shanta’s daily life and her search for a cure, with the filmmaker occasionally posing a question to those concerned. The women’s religious songs praising the power of the Goddess form a recurring interlude.