It takes great courage for one to open up about an incident of abuse and a moment of weakness. And doing that in front of a crowd of respectable people takes that extra ounce of courage. But 31-year-old Adwaita Das managed to put all her strength together to do what she hadn’t been able to seven years ago. The former FTII student who was attending the 4th International Short Film Festival on Saturday December 12, 2015 named her abuser who was part of the jury.
Adwaita who was awarded the Best Editing Award for the short film ‘Dr Mandela Kaise Pagal Hua’ walked upon stage to collect her award but ended up revealing the harsh truth about her own experiences as a student with professor Nilanjan Datta who was coincidentally presenting the award and was a part of the jury.
She announced to the gathering that the man who was handing her the award had sexually harassed her at the Film and Television Institute of India, seven years ago when she was a student.
Das also stated that she was inspired by another movie, Bhor and 18-minute film on sexual harassment that was screened at the same festival and was encourage to speak up.
The accused Nilanjan Datta is an associate professor of film editing at the FTII and a visiting faculty at MIT Institute of Design. He has also won the national award for best film on environment in 2009 for the film Bhanga Ghara and is a popular name in the field of film editing.
“I was not sure that it was him. But when my name was announced, I was shocked to see him there on the stage with my award in his hand. That very moment, I decided to give it back to him. I just switched on my camera phone and went ahead to receive the award. I spoke my heart out but I refrained from what I intended to do, out of respect to the jury,” Das stated to a newspaper.
She went ahead to divulge in detail and continued, “In our FTII days, we used to have small ‘satsangs’ where there was some good natured ragging. But one day, someone complained to the management and the blame was put on some juniors, including me. The seniors were very upset with the management’s decision. One day, Datta, who supported the seniors, came to me drunk.
He called me for the satsang. By 1 AM, we were alone. For almost an hour, we spoke about a certain film.”
The conversation then shifted to morality and character and Datta even made statements like “tumne kya kya gul khilaya hai pata hai”.
“He told me I have to give sexual favours to the seniors. He asked me to come to Mulshi dam with him and asked whether I am scared to travel with him and the seniors,” said Das.
Datta said, “I have no intention to speak on whatever she has alleged. I had even made it clear to the management then. I have nothing to explain.”
Here’s the video of her revelation:
