TROILOKYA

A child bride, an adolescent widow, a runaway, a prostitute, a con artist, a fugitive and eventually, a serial killer, Troilokya Raur is perhaps India’s first ever known and documented female murderer and criminal mastermind. Troilokya’s delinquency reverberated as far as the United Kingdom and Scotland, with broadsheets labelling her the ‘wholesale murderess’ at a time when the British Empire was expanding its stronghold amongst its colonies. Her story was found and translated from her spoken confessions captured in ‘Darogar Daptar’, a memoir written by detective Priyonath Mukhopadhyay in 1885, who dedicated a large part of his career in her pursuit and is considered the father of Bengali detective fiction. A true-crime psychological thriller, a historical drama and perhaps, even a perversely twisted love story, this film depicts the unheard true events of Priyonath’s hunt for Troilokya, as we navigate through their eccentric relationship fraught with lust, obsession, revenge and hatred. An epic saga spanning four decades between two nemesis – one, the unlikeliest of detectives, and the other, the most diabolically resilient woman - the haunting notes of which have left an indelible mark on the landscape of female criminal history, 170 years later.