Utpal Kalal zooms into the underbelly of V-Day

What is the season to celebrate love for most people across the world has a dark side, and Udaipur-based filmmaker Utpal Kalal, who has explored this facet of Valentine’s Day in his documentary The 14th February & Beyond, says the “harmless” global love fest comes at a cost.

The doctor-turnedfilmmaker shares that when he sat down to research on the subject, he got to know that eve-teasing incidents, acid attacks, suicides and disputes were very common in India in February, and globally, too!

The 28-year-old spoke to psychologists and lawyers to study the commercial, psychological and social impact of observing Valentine’s Day. “My interest was in how a seemingly harmless celebration has turned out to be and its repercussions. In India, people cover stories on police chasing couples on the day... but nobody is looking into it in a deeper way. The onehour documentary is bringing facts and case studies with the storytelling,” adds Kalal, who hails from a small village, Phalasia, in Rajasthan.

Recalling what first got him hooked to the subject, Kalal says, “Local newspapers [in Phalasia] did campaigns where you could give them money and they would print shayari if you wanted to dedicate it to someone. In villages, where people don’t even talk to each other, someone was doing mohabbat ka izhaar. I used to wonder why it was happening... Later, I shifted to Udaipur and started my medical prep from Kota, where during Valentine’s week, they had to deploy extra security. There used to be eve teasing because the month has that vibe that boys feel they have the license to propose any girl, whether she likes you or not.”

He was also aware how a section of society felt the celebration is “against our culture and Sanskriti”, but he was seeing different angles of it. “Nobody was talking about the mental health of society that’s being impacted with this day,” adds Kalal, whose movie is doing rounds at national as well as foreign film festivals.