Devadasi Girls

These are a few of the girls that we interviewed for the film. I wont go into too much details about them because I need to save it for a bigger blog.

Here are two best friends called Beluwa and Mala. Beluwa (left) is 22 and Mala (right) is about 15 but she doesn't know for sure as she doesn't know when her birthday is. Poor Indian families don't register their kids birthdays so they forget when it is. In poor schools all the children have to have their birthday on the same day - June 1st. Imagine how annoying that would be, you'd get no lime light for the day.


We went to their village and Beluwa made us fresh roti's from corn. They tasted amazing. One of the little village kids pissed in Pierre's shoes.


These are two generations of Devadasi ladies. Grandmother and mother. There is a granddaughter too but she died a few years back. There was a framed photo of the daughter in the mudhut where they had superimposed her head onto the body of a woman wearing a really glamorous sari sitting on a chair with again, a superimposed image of mountains in the background. This is what they do when people die in India. I think i've seen similiar images with some Iranian relations too.

The mother was also making roti's when we went to her mud hut. I think roti's are pretty popular when you're in poverty and have nothing else to eat. Her one wasn't as good as Beluwa's but she was making it in a pitch black room which was pretty cool.


This is Grandma. Sarah called her greedy granny because when we offered her and her family some snacks she whipped them up and kept smacking the little kids every time they went for some. She also stole all our bottles of water. I gave out some dolls and toys to the kids and she nicked them too. Then she kept tugging at my trousers and basically asked me to give some more dolls to this little girl who didn't get one. I explained I had no more and then noticed she had a little doll tucked away in her sari. I told her "no greedy granny, toys are for the kiddies, not for you" and I took the doll out the sari and gave it to the little girl. She wasn't impressed.

Look at her go with the Kit Kat's!

As we were leaving she held Sarah's hand and seemed to be saying some really emotional words to her. Her eyes were teary and Sarah looked back at her with a sorrowful expression as if to say "Even though I don't understand what you are saying, I'm sorry that you have had such a hard life". Then our translator said "She is saying 'If you bring me back a new sari tomorrow, the world will be a better place'".

Oh Greedy Granny, we'll miss you.