Short abstract
They fear it could undermine public confidence in cornea transplants
Promotional material for the Bollywood horror film Naina reads, “Twenty years of Darkness. 7 days of hell. No one could survive it. She did” (www.nainathefilm.com). While the film—released on 20 May and now showing all over India—may not have spooked that many audiences as yet, it has terrified ophthalmologists and voluntary eye-donation campaigners all over the country.
Figure 1.
Sensationalist? A promotional poster for the movie
The “hell” portrayed in the movie is the paranormal experiences of the lead character, whose eyesight is restored by a cornea transplant. According to eye specialists of the All India Ophthalmological Society (AIOS), and campaigners at the Eye Bank Association of India (EBAI) and Ganadarpan (a Calcutta-based voluntary organisation), Naina could reinforce myths about cornea transplants and is poised to create a climate of fear among recipients as well as donors.
The film tells the story of a blind girl called Naina (also meaning “eyes” in Hindi) living in London. The girl loses her eyesight in a car crash when she is 5 years old. Twenty years later Naina (played by Urmila Matondkar, a doyenne of horror films) gets a corneal transplant. The operation restores her vision but she has a series of hallucinations. Instead of sunshine and bright colours she sees shadows and spirits, and, having gained the power of clairvoyance, can foresee death.
In the London hospital where she undergoes the transplant, she witnesses all sorts of blood and gore. Stoical surgeons scoop out organs in operating theatres, and stupefied nurses stare from bedsides while blood-drenched corpses are whisked away by shadowy attendants. These scenes are all freeze framed to make audiences freak and scream.
Naina's nightmarish hallucinations follow her to a suburban London apartment. Her morbid clairvoyance perplexes her psychiatrist-turned-lover. Eventually, it transpires that the spirit of the cornea donor—a dead girl from a remote Indian village—has passed to Naina. The donor happened to be clairvoyant and could foresee death. The film could be interpreted as sending out the message that Naina's blind life was better than her life with sight.
The contrived storyline might not impress audiences, but doctors and campaigners worry that it is strong enough to send out the wrong signals to superstitious cinema goers in India. “Bollywood has such a huge impact on the mindset of gullible Indians that the movie will surely send a negative message,” said Tanuja Joshi, managing director of Venu Eye Institute and Research Centre, New Delhi, India, and the president of EBAI, a voluntary organisation that has been trying to encourage eye donation. She believes that Naina will affect the success of the eye donation movement, which ironically received a boost when Bollywood idols such as Aishwarya Rai and Amitabh Bachchan pledged their eyes for cornea transplants.
“All those who watch the movie will definitely have an impression that after corneal grafting surgery the patients will get supernatural experiences”
About 2.5 million people in India have cornea-related blindness. To address this, the country requires approximately 400 000 corneas annually, but the rate of cornea donation is about only 14 000 a year (www.nahak.com/eyeproject.htm).
“By 2020, India will need 300 000 eye donors,” said Dr Ajit Sinha, president of the All India Ophthalmological Society—an organisation of around 8500 members. “A tremendous task is ahead of us and the motivation programme has to go ahead with greater zeal. At this juncture all those who will watch the movie will definitely have an impression that after corneal grafting surgery the patients will get supernatural experiences and hence it will create a setback to the movement of eye donation. The donor and recipients both will be scared to come forward,” he added.
Professor Himadri Datta of the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology, Calcutta, India, said, “I've already received calls from families of potential cornea recipients who've inquired if there is any chance of cornea transplant going wrong as shown in Naina.”
Encouraging Indians to donate eyes and organs in general has been an onerous task. “Strong cultural and religious beliefs of reincarnation and related superstitions are huge hurdles we've to face continually,” said Brojo Roy, general secretary of Ganadarpan, a voluntary organisation, working to raise awareness about organ donation. “Films like Naina can only reinforce superstition, setting the clock back for eye donation,” he added.
EBAI's Tanuja Joshi said, “A sensitive subject like eye donation needs sensitive handling not sensationalisation.” EBAI has filed a lawsuit (public interest litigation or PIL) against the film at the high court in Delhi. The All India Ophthalmological Society has also filed a suit in the Mumbai and Delhi high courts calling for a ban on the film (www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200505251258.htm). Although the Delhi court turned down its plea the society is still waiting a decision from the Mumbai court. “This movie should be banned or [come up with] a revised version in some way that a wrong message is not passed to the public,” said Ajit Sinha. Calcutta's Ganadarpan has launched a leafleting campaign to counter-act the message of the film.
However, for Naina's director, Sripal Morakhia, the public outcry has come as a surprise. He has been quoted as insisting that Indian audiences—even though many of them may be illiterate—are intelligent enough to differentiate between fact and fiction (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1120614.cms).
The film's star, actress Urmila Matondkar, has also brushed aside the controversy surrounding the film, and has been quoted as calling all the claims “baseless” (http://www.apunkachoice.com/scoop/bollywood/20050524-2.html).