Hari-Bhari (Fertility) is a 2000 Hindi film by Shyam Benegal, starring Shabana Azmi, Rajit Kapur, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Surekha Sikri and Nandita Das.
[1] The film revolves around the story of five women, belonging to different generations, each looking for emancipation and the right to run their lives their own way.
[2] The movie tells the story of a middle aged Muslim woman Gazala (Shabana Azmi), who is ill-treated by her husband and sent back to her parents’ home, just because she is unable to give birth to a son.
The film is a beautiful description of the problems faced by women in the name of fertility, or in a different sense the urge to have a male child, especially in rural India.
The irony lies in the point where the movie begins with a scene which shows a bull being brought to impregnate a buffalo.