Mumbai: 'Filmi dacoits are bunkum'

[ 5 Sep, 2006 2009hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

Seema Parihar is a real-life dacoit who was married to the dreaded Nirbhay Gujjar.

The life of dacoits, shown in films like Sholay or even the 'realistic' Bandit Queen, is bunkum. That's the verdict of Seema Parihar, a real-life bandit. "It's hardly a romantic life. In reality, you don't have bandits shooting around on horses or cabaret shows in the evening. On the contrary, it's scary and full of struggle. You are running from the police all the time," says Seema.

After Seema's surrender, it was during her incarceration that Krishna Mishra decided to make a film on her life. "Convincing the authorities, and of course Seema, besides getting her bail organised was tough, but now that the film is ready, it's all been worth it," says Mishra.

But before signing on the dotted line, Seema had a set of conditions. "One of these was not to romanticise my life, the way Phoolan Devi's was done. I wanted a realistic portrayal of what I've been through," she says. And replaying her life on the screen was "a heart-rending experience" for the former bandit who was kidnapped from her home at the age of 13. The reason? Her father refused to give her hand in marriage to someone from a "lower-caste community. They took their revenge thus and I was married off to Nirbhay Gujjar who was recently killed in an encounter," she informs.

For six years, Seema could not meet her parents because "this would have put them in great trouble. You can imagine my state, what I went through. And this made an apradhi out of me. The men's atrocities forced me to pick up the gun for survival," she says.

Life in the jungle was tough, she says. "We moved around on foot, sometimes covering 60 to 70 kms in a day. And no, there were no horses. Where can you hide yourself with horses? If you're on foot, and being pursued by the police, you can quickly hide behind a bush or trees. So, being on foot is safer."

And now that she has a son, Sagar, she has surrendered and is at peace. Ask her if she has any regrets and she says, "I wish our villagers were with us. If they'd been, I wouldn't have undergone the ordeal I did."