Synopsis Of The Movie 'Oma': Redefining The Human

Medha Alisetty
Ms. Arpita Mandal
English 1010
November 28 2014
Redefining the “human” The utter meaning of life is to be able to abide by the rules of being human. Being human is not that easy though. It can be described in many ways like being able to differentiate between what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, whether to help someone in pain or not. Questioning oneself about whether being human has been their forte might bring up many questions. Grief, oppression, gender differences and violence bring out the true human, the translucent human, true colors of the human. Butler describes these and some other values in different ways that provoke questions in minds of philosophers and daily beings. Being beside oneself
It describes the lives of the people, especially women, when Afghanistan was under the cruel control of the Taliban. Women were highly oppressed and constrained in the society. They could not work or roam outside without an alive man in the household. In this movie, women of three generations have lost their husbands, sons and fathers, which means it is highly burdensome for them to survive in the Taliban society. They would only survive on food that neighbors or friend bought to them, the mother was a nurse but could not work anymore. They decided to dress their preteen girl as a young boy and go venture out to search for a job. Only a boy named Espandi and the job giver new her real identity. It was all going well until the boys were called into schools for war training. Espandi named her Osama so the boys would not suspect her, since Osama was a boy’s name. Suspicions grow and finally she starts bleeding, which is when the Taliban school officials find out that she is not a boy. The punishment she gets is being married off to an old Mullah who locks her up in his house, like all his other wives. (Osama,
She tried everything she could. She worked as a nurse, but is paid less or goes unpaid, since the hospital owner himself has lost Taliban funds or does not have any money left with himself. She exchanged goods in her house for food. She had an aim, a project, a plan, for everyday – to find money and food (Butler 115). Even Osama had one aim – to work at the snack store and earn money. Both of them were hit by waves of different kind but managed to get up and walk on even though it was not that easy (Osama, Barmak). Every step was higher and farther from the previous one, but somehow even without being oneself they managed to live. But looking at a long term time scale, they did not have an aim in life, they had an everyday goal for sure. They just wanted to stay