Posham Pa : The story of “ Nature Versus Nurture”

Posham Pa is a 2019 Hindi language crime drama film directed by National award-winning filmmaker Suman Mukhopadhyay. The film inspired by the true events of women serial killers, who went on a rampage across Maharashtra, kidnapping children for their needs, and then ruthlessly murdered them. The name of this film is based on a traditional children’s play but the plot revolves around the kidnapping and assassination. The film started with two documentarians Shivani Raghuvanshi as Nikhat and Imaad Shah as Gundeep, recording the lives and crimes of the three women who are on death row. They get the angle they are looking for, and they finally have a reason for this viciousness ‘Nature versus Nurture’. Some say more than 40 children were kidnapped and around 12 murdered, and only 5 of them proven. The killers were three women Anjana, and her two daughters Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde, while the mother died under-trial, the two sisters are still on death row, after their mercy petition was rejected by the former President, Pranab Mukherjee. The characters of mother brilliantly performed by Mahie Gill as Prajakta Deshpande, and her two daughters Sayani Gupta as Regha Sathi and Ragini Khanna as Shikha Deshpande. The mother is shown to be disturbed, stressed, and struggling with her addictions of multiple substances, including injecting psychotropic agents, which almost kills one of her daughters once. What begins as stealing for essentials and then turns into Kleptomania, and lastly grows into serial murders. Prajakta when working as a maid at Dharmesh home got mixed up and married to him, and in a little while, she had a daughter whose name was Shikha. Soon her tendency of theft thrown out her from the house of  Dharmesh when she was caught up by hotel attendant during stealing. After years she went to Dharmesh home to request forgiveness, but she finds that he’s married and had a son who was ill with autism. During the series of Interviews, the documentarians had a different perspective, one is doubtful on their stories and others believe that they don’t deserve a death penalty. Extreme poverty, hardship, patriarchy, and substance abuse all are responsible for the creation of these notorious serial killers or so the documentarians believed. This film is a true reflection of the circumstances which force them to instigate in these kinds of heinous crimes. The movie portrays ample medical and psychosocial conditions which made them become killers. Regha suffers from psychosis. She has hallucinations of her dead mother, she also has trichotillomania (an intense urge to pull out her hair) and in the end, she passes away by attempting suicide in prison. The movie also portrays an autistic child, the step-brother of Shikha, who ends up as a victim, on account of extreme jealousy. It is this murder that leads to the arrest of the killer mother-daughter duo. The film also shows one of the innocent sisters as a rape survivor. The movie also raises some pertinent questions without stating them – should individuals with psychosis be kept in prison, are criminals also victims themselves? The two daughters were innocent but as we say to raise a kid in a good way play a very important role. It’s the responsibility of the parent to take care of their child. Otherwise when your kids take further steps ahead from you, then you realize what was the loss, and the same happened with Shikha. She started giving ideas of begging, murder, and theft to her mother and she follows exactly what she said. Shikha was educated compared to her sister but her literacy goes in the wrong direction. The film is half-done as at the end of the story, Shika’s false statements cleverly put up all the crime on her mother and sister's head. It is too early to say who is innocent and who is a mastermind murderer. Who is the victim and who is the killer? The brilliant acting of all the cast hooks you up till the last. It’s a good film which was not got much applauded.