SAAR (ESSENCE)
Tawaif - a name given to courtesans of the high Indian societies. Beings who create miracles with a voice that heals. Their dancing shows heaven, their curses show hell. The woman with the most merits in their own kind, yet confined in the chalked boundaries of the red - light districts.
Kaanti Devi was kidnapped as a tender child of four and was forcibly handed over to dalals; to become a courtesan of the Gharaana of Chaand Bibi - Gulshan Basera. There are other courtesans in ‘Basera’, but among them, Kaanti is the only woman that longs to improve the lives of her inmates. With a rebellious decision to not provide sexual services, she sings around and dances like the apsaras - trying to gather Saraswathi and keep happy with her fellow group of singers.
Although Kaanti hates the English Raj that is slowly devouring the streets of Bihar, she gets used to life as a teacher - set up by a British lord for the children in the forbidden streets. Meanwhile, she could not be indifferent to Matthias, the son of the president of a large iron corporation in Britain, who is appointed as the lieutenant-governor of the Bengal presidency in 1899.
He looks like he has everything yet has destitute eyes.
So once he sets his sight on Kaanti, he can’t take his eyes off her.
Perhaps he could perceive her wishes to grasp the skies, and couldn’t wait to clip the wings that let her dream . . . .
