A mother sold by her husband, assaulted by strangers — and still she rises.
The life of Padma, a woman who is sold into prostitution by her husband, becomes worse after she is raped by a gang of men on the night of his death of cancer. However, she decides to continue living for her handicapped son.
Acting
Debashree Roy's devastation — raw, unsanitized, career-defining.
Direction
Ganguly refuses to aestheticize suffering; no easy catharsis offered.
Director
Ratul Ganguly
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Daaha belongs to Bengali 'social problem' cinema descended from Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen, using melodrama as political weapon rather than escape.
The title translates to 'burning' — referring both to Padma's fever during her husband's death and the slow immolation of women in India's informal economies.
US
