Row over delivery scene in film

By Ashraf Padanna/ThiruvananthapuramThe women’s wing of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has threatened to block the release of a Malayalam film which features a popular regional actress giving birth to her child in real life.Kalimannu or Clay is a film on motherhood directed by award winning filmmaker Blessy. The film is under production and is expected to hit the screens next year.However, a section of exhibitors in Kerala has threatened to boycott the film unless the scenes of Shweta Menon giving birth to her child are deleted.Menon, the second runner up after Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai at the 1994 Miss India pageant and a former model, had justified her decision to allow movie cameras inside her labour room saying “one’s ethics may not be others’”.  “This is a beastly act and it’s against the Indian ethos. We’d stop the film’s release at any cost,” said Sobha Surendran, the Kerala unit president of the BJP Manila Morcha. “Menon herself is an insult to the womanhood. If the film is cleared for release, there would be huge repercussions.”  On November 5, Menon received the best actress award at the Kerala Film Awards function from Chief Minister Oommen Chandy with her 40-day-old infant in her hands.The public appearance prompted G Karthikeyan, speaker of the state assembly who is a nominee of the Congress Party, to remark that the director and the actress were breaching the privacy of the newborn and commercial interests were behind the action.Former health minister P K Sreemathi, a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) also said it was improper to film the delivery and the Kerala society had not grown enough to ‘digest’ it.  Though public opinion is divided over the shooting, the director and the actress are receiving overwhelming support from fellow filmmakers, writers and intellectuals.“The only thing that matters is the privacy of the mother. In this case, it was the will of the mother, which was supported by her partner,” said Dr Khadeeja Mumtaz, a gynaecologist and a popular writer. “We also need not worry about Shwetha taking her child with her for the award function. Mother knows best and tries her best to take care of her child,” she added.