Dadi and Her Family: A Rural Mother-In-Law in North India
This film focuses on a grandmother (Dadi) in a Jat farm family in Haryana. Dadi is committed to preserving her family consisting of her husband, her sons, her daughters-in-law, and her grandchildren, all sharing their incomes and expenses. During the film, Dadi contrasts the behavior of daughters-in-law today with daughters-in-law in her day, organizes household work as well as celebrations, and describes the ultimate dependence of women on the men to whom they are given in marriage. Dadi and her family recognize, but cannot fully control, the constantly changing forces holding the family together as well as threatening to break up the family and to divide and separate the family property.