When a woman receives her blood-soaked husband at the doorstep, she is caught between her duty to him and her grief for her daughter. It's a no-dialogue film that probes the pathology of a virtuous woman in a patriarchal society.
Ajay Kishor Shaw is a filmmaker based in Mumbai. He worked in advertising for many years as a copywriter before switching to filmmaking. His first short film, 'Happy Birthday', premiered at NYIFF 2021 and was showcased at IFFSA, Toronto 2021. 'Ghar Ki Lakshmi' (A Virtuous Woman) is his second short film. As a kid in West Bengal, I once watched a butcher sacrifice lambs brought by devotees at the altar of Maa Jagaddhatri in my neighborhood. I was terrified and mesmerized by how haloed and deadly the butcher looked. The image got stuck in my head. Decades later, that bloody image of the butcher came to mind when I decided to make a short film. I wondered what would happen if he came home just like that to his wife. This developed into 'Ghar Ki Lakshmi', A Virtuous Woman. In a burst of creativity, I wrote four other stories to make an anthology of shorts. I made my first short film, 'Happy Birthday', during the uncertain times of Covid, and decided not to make another short, rather putting energy and resources into a feature. But who am I to decide? 'Ghar Ki Lakshmi' reared its bloody face and forced me to make it. I had no choice. And here we are. The most challenging part of making it was translating the beauty and terror I felt as a kid seeing that butcher into every film frame. With no dialogue in the script, it got even more difficult. But we pulled it off as a team. Everyone in the crew threw themselves into the process and contributed more than what was expected of them. Since it's an intense story, we shot this film in 1.66:1. The added height allowed us to create abstract framings, adding to the suspenseful atmosphere. It was not all hunky-dory, I must add. We had to bear many a hiccup and headache. It was worth it. We have made the film the way we wanted: Personal and Provocative. 
The New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) is the oldest, most prestigious film festival screening premieres of feature, documentary and
short films made from, of, and about the Indian subcontinent in the Independent, arthouse, alternate and diaspora genres.
