(Image courtesy: Google)
India’s super-talented ladies, Kartiki Gonsalves, and Guneet Monga, the all-women squad of ‘The Elephant Whisperers’, sparkle at the Oscar Academy Awards. It’s as if they gave us Indian women one incredible gift post-Women’s Day Celebration.
Guneet Monga, the producer of the movie, took to Instagram to applaud this extraordinary event. She penned, “ Tonight is historic as this is the first-ever Oscar for an Indian production. India’s Glory with two women.”
The Elephant Whisperers’ victory has become a phenomenal success for more than one purpose. The movie is directed and produced by two women, Kartiki Gonsalves, and Guneet Monga. This triumph is a significant stride to shattering the glass ceilings that still prevail in the male-dominated entertainment business.
2023 has demonstrated to be an unprecedented year for Indians. This year not just one but two Indian contenders lifted an Oscar, hitting the bull’s eye. Indians overseas and at home are going ga-ga over the landmark accomplished by the foot-tapping song ‘Naatu Naatu’ (the chartbuster from SS Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’) for the best original score and Kartiki Gonsalves’ ‘The Elephant Whisperers’ which bagged an Oscar for the best short documentary film.
About the two remarkable women behind ‘The Elephant Whisperers’:
(Image courtesy: The National)
Meet Kartiki Gonsalves –
The Oscar-winning debutante, whose directorial debut ended up winning an Oscar in the Best Documentary Short category. She’s the director of the heartfelt short docu-drama, ‘The Elephant Whisperers.’
Heralding and growing up in the Nilgiri mountains, and evolving within a biosphere resource, Kartiki acquired a keen interest in nature, wildlife, and biodiversity. She had a flourishing career as a photojournalist.
Kartiki served as a camera operator for Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. She’s one of the first women to be chosen in India as a Sony Imaging Ambassador for the Sony Alpha series as a natural history, social documentary photographer. She has also traveled across India, to record the lives of indigenous communities and their offering to protect the ecosystem.
The similar issue is echoed in ‘The Elephant Whisperers’, which took five years to be created. The film examines the tender bond between a baby elephant Raghu and two mahouts Bomman and Bellie. Gonsalves and Monga, the makers of the movie, toiled closely with the indigenous Kattunayakan tribe, from where Bomman and Bellie belong to. The film was shot at the Mudumalai National Park, located in the midst of the beautiful Nilgiri Mountains in Tamil Nadu.
(Image courtesy: Google)
Meet Guneet Monga –
The founder-CEO of Sikhya Entertainment is also the executive producer of the short film ‘Period- End Of Sentence’ which had bagged an Oscar Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2019. In a crusade to generate more meaningful entertainment, she has produced films like the ‘Gangs Of Wasseypur’ franchise, ‘The Lunchbox’, ‘Masaan’, ‘Pagglait’ etc.
Born into a middle-class Punjabi family, Guneet grew up in Delhi. She disclosed through an emotional Instagram post, that she had observed countless horrors during her childhood. Due to a property dispute, her family was given just one room in her ancestral house and her mother endured domestic abuse, to the point where they (Guneet, her father, and her mother) ran away from there.
Monga now earned for the family, as her mother wished for a lavish life. “At 16, I started working while balancing schoolwork, I sold cheese on the streets, was an announcer at PVR, a DJ, an anchor…you name it.“ she wrote.
She finally earned enough money to purchase a house for her parents. But, due to cruel fate, both of them died before the house was prepared. To exit from the depression, Monga moved to Mumbai and invested full-time in film production.
“My dreams then became my director’s dreams. I was always on my feet and barely slept four hours a day. Each film was a challenge. Crowd-funding, international sales- but I loved it! I wanted to hear my mom’s ‘you did well’ or my dad’s ‘proud of you’…” Guneet wrote.
A movie directed and also produced by the two Indian women winning an Oscar is certainly historic. And India’s achievement at the world’s largest award show is no doubt spectacular.
The Momma Clan 
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