Some films are forgotten as soon as the end credits roll. Others leave audiences thinking about their messages for a long time. And then there are films like Marching in the Dark, whose creation itself leaves an impact on not just the viewers, but also the people who become part of the narrative.
The 111-minute documentary by Kinshuk Surjan, a film maker who highlights the plight of farmers and is studying how films can have a more active role in social change, follows the life of Sanjeevani Bhure of Ambajogai, Maharashtra, whose husband had died by suicide in 2016. On a typical day, she gets her children ready for school, cooks for her in-laws, collects firewood, and then tends to her farm. In the afternoon, she studies in secret for college examinations. Then, she heads to Maitri Gat, a small room set up in the town, where “farm widows” like her meet.
Ambajogai is a tehsil located in Beed, a district that often features prominently in the statistics related to farmer deaths by suicide. The latest 2023 data with the National Crime Records Bureau shows that since 1995, when the bureau began collecting data, more than 400,000 farmers in the country have died by suicide. In 2022 alone, 11,290 such deaths were reported—equating to one farmer or farm labourer dying every hour. The trend can be correlated with the heavy financial burden farmers bear owing to the rising production cost, volatile markets and reduction in share of earnings from the goods. But Marching in the Dark does not dwell on figures. Rather, it brings attention to the lives of the women whose husbands and sons have died by suicide.
Much of the film was shot in the room in Ambajogai that was converted into Maitri Gat—a space where 16-17 women who lost their husbands would meet to share thoughts and questions with each other, and to also act as a support group.
This group is unusual, Surjan tells Down To Earth (DTE), because it did not come up naturally. A few years ago, he had travelled through Beed district after being struck by the high number of farmer deaths by suicide and to understand the distress of the families. He interacted with several “farm widows” and noted how they stayed resilient and overcame hardships after the death of their husbands. “They often expressed that ‘only those who have experienced similar pain can truly understand’ and thereby offer empathy and support. I often found myself sharing phone numbers and connecting the women through WhatsApp, trying to bridge the distance between their stories,” Surjan tells DTE. He also noted that the women felt a “sense of duty in supporting other women in similar circumstances.” So Surjan, along with some of the women and local non-profits Manavlok and Manaswini, created Maitri Gat in 2019.
The two-hour-long sessions at the space were facilitated by a psychiatrist, Milind Potdar, who has been working on issues related to farmer suicides in the Marathwada region since 2013. He tells DTE that the sessions were akin to “group therapy” practised in psychiatry. In this therapy, people with similar problems come together and discuss their struggles and sorrows, to release the burden of facing the challenge on their own. “This is the kind of therapy we also adopt for illnesses like alcoholism,” he says.
As the documentary shows glimpses of several sessions of Maitri Gat, one gets a profound sense of the trials the women face. The overarching sentiment of the group in most of the filmed sessions can be expressed in this quote from one of the women: “If you expect us to shed tears, you’ll be disappointed.” But even then, some discussions would become overwhelming with a woman bursting into tears. “Some of the sessions were also of grief therapy,” says Potdar, adding that these were the few times he intervened. “Otherwise, I was just an empathic listener to them, and that process itself was healing.”
The film also features some complex discussions the women have on subjects such as debt and remarriage. In one scene, a woman remarries and brings her husband to meet the group. In another, there is a debate on orthodox traditions—whether widowed women can wear a bindi—and patriarchy. And one question asked repeatedly was, “Why does this only happen to men?”
“There were even more profound conversations but they have not made it into the film,” Surjan tells DTE. “There were raw, urgent discussions about women’s land rights, the suffocating depression that followed the deaths of sons and husbands, the anxiety of seeing their young sons follow the path of their husbands, and moments when some women admitted they had contemplated taking their own lives,” he says.
There were also heartbreaking confessions about domestic violence and addiction. “These were not brief mentions—they were detailed, emotional and filled with a need to be understood,” says Surjan. Another layer subtly explored through the film is the power of women’s friendships. This is especially evident in cinematographer Leena Patoli’s thoughtful, lingering and lyrical frames of Bhure and Parimala Tai, the group “elder” (she lost her husband to suicide before anyone else in the group, and so has the longest “experience”). In one memorable scene, the two visit a woman who lost her husband. She asks them, “Will I have to pay off my husband’s debt?” Another shows Bhure leaning on Parimala Tai in a bus, allowing the audience a moment of deep contemplation.
Surjan says that through the years, he saw Bhure’s shy voice grow more articulate and sharper, particularly against alcohol addiction among farmers. She now works to help others and credits her growth to the meeting space.
Though Maitri Gat was dissolved in 2022 due to paucity of funds, the sessions changed the women’s perspective to-wards life and its shortcomings, says Potdar. He points out that farmers’ distress stems from several factors—politics, markets, climate, changing farming practices and social pressures. Then, there is the individual’s personal capacity to handle such stressors. He shares an example from 2014, when Latur in Maharashtra saw massive crop loss after a hail-storm. “By the following week, 13 farmers had died by suicide.”
“I found no direct relation between the amount of loss and deaths. People with bigger losses were fighting on, while some with much smaller losses had taken their lives,” he says. The differentiating factor was depression. Identifying this or other psychological issues among farmers can save lives. Potdar says there is a need for all people to learn to share, like women did at Maitri Gat. “The women easily express their feelings to others, they cry out. But men let their feelings saturate. Whenever it reaches a limit, they are not trained how to handle that,” he says. Adds Surjan, “Many men took their lives because they felt they could not show vulnerability or ask for help. Women often told me, ‘if only our husbands had spoken to us, we would’ve found a way’. In contrast, the women, who had no choice but to endure, discovered a quiet, surprising strength.”
Potdar and Surjan say that despite visiting many villages in Beed, they could not find a group or support network for men. Whether or not the film will inspire more such spaces for both men and women, it opens the door for discourse.
This article was originally published in the May 1-15, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth