Depiction of harsh urban realities

Pinki Elli? Kannada (Theatres)

Director: Prithvi Konanur

Cast: Akshatha Pandavapura, Gunjalamma, Deepak Subramanya

Rating: 3/5

Bindu (Akshatha Pandavapura) comes home to find her eight month-old daughter Pinki and her nanny Sannamma missing. Sannamma has lent the baby to a relative, Anasuya, to beg on the streets. Anasuya loses the baby, and a distressed Sannamma drags Anasuya along to look for the baby.

‘Pinki Elli?’ follows the journey of three women — a mother who wants to earn a few rupees extra to take care of her grown-up paralysed son, a mother who has lost her baby, and a mother who has lost her children at childbirth and longs to have one.

The film, directed by Prithvi Konnanur, was screened at multiple film festivals around the world and in India. He brings to the screen interesting vignettes from the communities living on the streets of Bengaluru. One community washes soil collected from near gold jewellery stores. They use acid to then extract gold from it.

‘Pinki Elli?’ sheds light on harsh realities in our daily lives. The police suspect transgender people have kidnapped Pinki and assault an eyewitness to say they did it.

Sannamma and Anasuya speak a north Karnataka dialect and Sannamma wears an Ilkal sari (from the region). A concern is that while the film intends to show urban problems, it shouldn’t show migrant workers from a region in a poor light. The director has said they were the best choice as he was looking for non actors. The narrative may have become unintentionally problematic on this score.

Bindu comes across as a strong, unapologetic, uncompromising young woman, in pursuit of happiness.

She moves away from people when she finds out they cannot be trusted. With her compelling performance, Akshatha Pandavapura does justice to the character.

The film is said to be based on an incident reported in Bengaluru.