Girls from Oscar Winner 'Period. End of Sentence' can't cope up with fame

Mumbai: Sneha and Suman, who had starred in the Oscar-winning Period. End of Sentence, director Rayka Zehtabchi's documentary short which tackles the stigma of menstruation in the country, are finding it difficult to cope with the changes that the fame brought into their lives.

ALSO READ: RM Lodha, Former CJI, cheated of Rs 1 Lakh in Online scam

The documentary was filmed at the sanitary pad-making factory in Kathikeda, Uttar Pradesh, where the two women worked.

The factory, which began in 2017 with negative comments from the villagers, came into the limelight after the documentary won an Oscar earlier this year.

After the news broke men and women from neighbouring towns and villages came down to Kathikeda, congratulating them for making the anonymous village famous.

A Times of India report says that the two women are in "deep financial crisis" as they lost their jobs at the factory.

According to the report, Fly, the factory which manufactures the sanitary pads, asked them to leave because they refused to hand over the Rs 1 lakh each gifted by UP CM Akhilesh Yadav for their achievement. They had also received Rs 50,000 each from the state's governor Ram Naik.

The report quotes 28-year-old Suman saying: Suman"My husband works as temporary guard at a local bank's ATM facility and is unable to meet monthly expenses of the family. I was not paid for three months and when I asked for it, I was told that Rs 1 lakh were already given to me so I didn't need a salary, Eventually they asked me to quit."

ALSO READ: Trump to Russia and Syria: Stop “bombing the hell” in Syria’s Idlib

Sneha, who spoke about becoming a cop in the documentary says that she had to leave the institute because she has "no money" for taking coaching lessons.

The NGO that runs the unit says that since the film revolved around their facilities and initiatives, the financial rewards belong to them.

Project manager for Action India Hapur, Devender Kumar, has refuted the charges, and said that after returning (from Oscar ceremony), the two "were engrossed in festivities and began to neglect work" and "it went on for two months."