Caseworker’s Diary I Episode 2: Nirnay

The Third Eye worked with 12 caseworkers in rural and small town Uttar Pradesh, and through a process that included immersive writing, theatre-based pedagogies and year long workshops, the caseworkers became the lexicographers of The Caseworkers’ Dictionary of Violence.

The easiest thing to tell a woman in a violent marriage is to just leave. But is leaving always that simple? From financial vulnerabilities to a loss of kinships, to a turbulent clash of hope and fear, to a complex interplay of love and desire, the decision to not leave are also stories that need to be heard.

In this story, a caseworker who stays in a violent marriage herself – take us through her own samjhauta with herself to make meaning of the biggest contradiction of her life.

Caseworker’s Diary is a series of audio stories, which emerged from the lived experiences of caseworkers in Uttar Pradesh, who work with situations of murder, rape, abduction, child sexual abuse, dowry deaths and domestic violence.

This series is a part of The Third Eye’s The Caseworker’s Dictionary of Violence which introduces a vocabulary around gender-based violence (GBV) that emerges from the grassroots, from those at the frontlines, within a deeply Indian context.

Narrated by: Shabina Mumtaz

Project Producers: Dipta Bhog and Astha Bamba

Project Facilitator: Apeksha Vora

Podcast Producer: Juhi Jotwani

Script Assistance: Astha Bamba, Dipta Bhog, Madhuri Adwani, Suman Parmar, and Apeksha Vora

Cover Photograph: Shivam Rastogi

(To maintain the anonymity of the case worker, names and places have been changed.)

The Third Eye is being written and developed by a team of educators, documentary filmmakers, storytellers; people with extensive experience of gathering narratives, oral histories and developing contextual pedagogies for the rural and the marginalised.