CHANDRIMA BHATTACHARYA   Mumbai, Nov. 7:  Bhanwari Devi may be the country’s most celebrated rape victim, but she doesn’t have the money to buy a plot of land in a neighbouring village. Bawandar, the film made on her life, may change all that, hopes Jagmohan Mundra, the director. Mundra is organising charity shows across the country to raise money for the village woman from Rajasthan who refused to bow down after being gangraped and became an icon in the process. The movie, starring Nandita Das, which will be released on November 23, will be shown at charity dos in Delhi on November 23 and in Mumbai on November 24. He will be in Calcutta next week. Similar shows have been held in London and Los Angeles. “Several lakhs have been raised at the shows,” claims Mundra, who says he is wary of making promises that may not turn into reality. But he wouldn’t mind bringing her into the spotlight again. The music cassette of the film was released at J-49, a happening disco here. “She may have turned into a celebrity. But Bhanwari Devi is where she was, possessor of four ghaghras, a poor saathin (women’s development worker) with a meagre allowance. She may have won the Neerja Bhanot award for bravery and taken to the women’s conference in Beijing. She may have been on the Savvy magazine cover. The Prime Minister may have honoured her. But day-to-day life is a very different thing. “My film is about the rape that follows the first rape. The upper-caste Gujjar men who raped her have been let off by the court, which said upper-caste men would not touch a lower-caste woman. The rapists belong to the same village as her, Bhateri, which is not a pretty thing,” says Mundra. “Till some time back, the Gujjar men used to expose themselves every time she passed by, calling her a liar and a loose woman. She wants to move away from all that, but doesn’t have the money to relocate and she is too proud to ask. Let me see if my movie can change all this,” Mundra adds. Nandita Das may be too young, too pretty for the feisty village woman. “But if it helps Bhanwari Devi in some way, what’s wrong with it?” says Mundra, admitting Bawandar, which means a slowly gathering sandstorm, is a much more “picturesque” version of the real story. Bhanwari Devi’s story goes back to 1992. She had protested against a child marriage in the sarpanch’s house. The marriage took place anyway, but the sarpanch and his cronies decided to teach the woman a lesson by raping her. Bhanwari Devi then went all the way to Jaipur with her husband and got herself medically examined. Women activists took up her cause, which catapulted her to the headlines. The director said there were initial objections from the activists because they felt a film would only make a spectacle out of Bhanwari Devi’s misery. But he was undeterred, as Bhanwari Devi herself was supportive from the beginning. “She liked the idea of the film very much,” he said. The storyline – names have been changed in the film — has a researcher from abroad, played by former VJ Laila Rouass, coming to Bhateri to write a book on Savri Devi, the Bhanwari Devi character. The story unfolds as Savri/Bhanwari starts telling her tale. “Laila’s character is interested in Bhanwari Devi for her own end. People come to meet her with their own agenda. Maybe I am also doing the same. But again, if it does some good, why not?” says Mundra.