Seven Steps Around the Fire
In 1595 Mughal India, a young Indian woman is forced to marry a man she doesn’t love and completes the saptapadi, a Hindu tradition wherein the bride and groom take seven steps around a sacred fire and thus, bind themselves together for seven lifetimes to come. Now in her eighth lifetime, a modern day Kareena is living in her parent’s home in the suburbs of San Francisco. Suffocated by her traditional Bengali-American household, she lives out a double life, keeping her budding relationship with her school colleague Suki a secret. She begins having visions of her previous incarnations, guided by three feminine Hindu deities who have taken a special interest in her. When Ma, Kareena’s conservative mother, discovers the pair, she presents her with an ultimatum— adhere to the long-standing tradition of arranged marriage, or lose your family and culture forever. During a conflictive family dinner, Kareena is introduced to Aman, an undeniably sweet Bengali-American man. While at first appalled by the arrangement, they eventually strike up a friendship, and Kareena begins to seriously consider her parents’ proposal. Meanwhile, her visions intensify, illuminating the mistakes that have repeatedly separated her from her true love. In an attempt to understand these visions, she turns to Suki, who suggests that they pave their own way together, rejecting tradition. However, after seeing her mother in her reflection, she begins to realize the deep similarities between them — both stifled by the same cultural restrictions but in different places in the life cycle. Kareena begins to see Aman regularly, even as she falls deeper in love with Suki. Ma unravels, taking out her anger about Kareena’s sexuality on her father. He decides to reveal to Kareena that Ma was also in love with a woman once, but chose to marry him and be her mother. Kareena starts to piece together the cycle that created her mother, a manifestation of closeted resentment. Kareena’s indecision takes a toll on Suki, who laments the cultural divide straining their relationship. After a difficult fight, Suki breaks up with Kareena, citing her involvement with Aman and the doubt surrounding their future. As Kareena processes the breakup, she becomes overwhelmed by the accumulation of her visions, all depicting the cycle her soul is stuck in— repression then projection. She realizes that to cleanse her karmic debt, she, present-day Kareena, must be the one to break the cycle. She confronts her parents, telling them that while she wants them in her life, she can’t live another lifetime in denial. Ultimately, the choice is theirs— they can love her unconditionally or lose their daughter forever. Riddled with guilt and shame for having denied herself and harmed her daughter, Ma makes a desperate plea to the gods to let her redeem herself in the next life and dies by suicide. Grieving her mother’s death, Kareena visits Suki. She imagines the wedding they always dreamed of as they gaze into one another’s eyes painfully, unsure of what comes next.