Tabla

Directed by Theertha Prakash

Synopsis:
The film revolves around Ishita, a girl in her mid twenties, who’s mother leaves home for a few days, leaving Ishita and her father alone to navigate living with each other in the mother’s absence, where in somehow most of the household responsibilities befall Ishita, forcing her to walk in her mother’s shoes while juggling her job at the same time. As tensions rise and roles blur, Ishita finds herself confronting her father about shared responsibilities, mental load and invisible labour in the household.

Director Statement:
In our inherently patriarchal society, household chores are often assigned as a woman's responsibility, while the notion that women mature faster is commonly perpetuated. However, the truth is that women are often compelled to mature faster due to being burdened with responsibilities and conditioned from a young age. Society's assertion that women are naturally better at such tasks merely serves to reinforce gender norms, allowing men to evade these duties. My film intends to shed light on the mental load and the invisible labour also sometimes referred to as "worry work" or "cognitive labor," the mental load is not about the physical tasks but rather the overseeing of those tasks. Woman often end up doing this in the household which leads to burn outs and frustrations often making women feel much more exhausted physically and mentally than their male counterparts.