Description
In 1976, a 17-year-old’s gangrape is hushed up. Aastha is forced to marry her rapist. The ripples of that traumatic night flow across decades, connecting the lives of many people in the town of Allahabad. Nearly 30 years later, Aastha struggles to come to terms with a life full of bitterness, emotional solitude, and compromises. The rape which made her cold to her son Prayag; and the secrecy and shame that kept his mother distant. In an attempt at redemption, Aastha tries to help Reshma, an impoverished young woman, inadvertently thrusting Reshma on the path of mortal danger. Aastha’s unwillingness to expose the past puts Prayag in the path of danger as well. The lives of Aastha, Prayag, Reshma, the four rapists, and those around them all fracture and intersect across social, economic, political, and religious lines. As the roots of hatred, love, and the meaning of family get brutally exposed by a religious riot, Aastha’s determination to finally make her own choices and reveal longheld secrets may hold the keys to life, death, reconciliation, and redemption. Where the Rivers Meet explores women’s agency and sisterhood. It dissects the nature of families across the barriers of class, religion and community.
