What
is feminism? Who is a feminist? For me anyone who is remotely annoyed by
patriarchy is a feminist. If you are a woman and you feel you have been
tactically or out rightly side lined because of your gender and you have the
agitation to do something about it, you are a feminist. If you are a man and
the fact that you have to work your ass off and always be in a seemingly never
ending race and you totally hate this screwed up system, welcome aboard! You
are a feminist. But the 'F' word scares us so much that we prefer being called
anything but feminists. That includes bizarrely built up words such as
Equalist, humanist and what not? Thanks to the patriarchs.
The simple
reason that equality is never served in a platter and it is the feminine
population which is being in the receiving end for ages, hence a little
emphasis in the naming would do no harm to human race is still a rocket science
for so many to understand.
Since
the word itself scares the living daylights out of us, it is the best and
highly manipulated ideology till this date. Mansplaining this concept is done
to death that we often hear male chauvinists peddling unabashed lies that
feminism is about women fighting to booze and smoke. Beats me!
Cinema
which is always a popular culture never fails to get on our nerves in its role
of protecting the patriarchal system without a dent. That said, there are few
movies, once in a blue moon which leaves a lasting impact in the service it
does in the name of art to mankind. One such beautiful movie is 'Parched'.
Set in the
parched desserts of Rajasthan, the film is intricately woven between the lives
of 3 women Rani, Lajjo and Bijili and their tryst with the patriarchal system
everyone lives in. This movie in every frame is a deliberate attempt to speak
for itself without boring us with lectures and to break free the stereotypes.
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| 1.Janaki; 2.Rani; 3.Lajjo & 4.Bijili |
The film
opens with Rani and Lajjo travelling in a bus to a nearby village to find a
potential bride for Rani's son Gulab. No extra marks for guessing it is a child
marriage. While Lajjo peeps her head out and enjoys the wind on her face, Rani
pulls her and veils her head telling women should never unveil their head. They
go and fix the deal.
The deal here is the bride's family demanding money from
the groom's family. Just the reverse of the dowry concept. The reason being the
bride is literally sold off here. This is a one way ticket. We have a half boil
Tamil movie boasting this practice and the lead ladies doing happy dance about
it. Here Rani and Lajjo fix the deal and return home.
We do
nothing:
We
love to do nothing.
We prefer
being handcuffed by imaginary norms than break free the obstacles. We
absolutely do nothing yet wish for everything to fall into place miraculously.
That is why we love super hero movies because we know we cannot afford the
luxury of making it happen ourselves. It is easy that someone else is doing and
we just enjoy the fruition.
Like us
the protagonists in the movie do nothing. They just watch when something
horrible happens to others and tolerate and wait for it to get over when the
assault is on them. It is the transformation of these characters over the
course of the movie through realistic scenarios that knits 'Parched' close to
our hearts.
A girl is
shown being driven away to her in-laws from where she had eloped. Her mother
and the whole village shoos her away un-mercilessly. The girl cries to her mom
that all the men in her in-law’s place rape her daily and doesn’t want to go
back. But still her mom sends her away. The so called family honour could not
be risked even at that cost. Rani and Lajjo watch this and do nothing. They do
not even display anger, disgust or hatred. They just watch. In any other movie,
we could have heard a earful from someone on why this is all wrong. But here we
don’t. This is the ground reality in most of the places. There is nothing superficial here. These
initial scenes set up the atmosphere in which the story is to unfold.
There is
another scene where Bijili comes to Rani's house for her son's ceremony. The
whole village which is the customer for Bijili at night throw disgusted looks.
Even Rani feels ashamed for having her. Bijili leaves the place quickly. Nobody
does anything. They neither tell us how hypocritic these villagers are nor the
value of friendship. They just behave as they are assigned. Do nothing and be
hypocrites.
It is this
intrinsic thing about this movie that keeps us hooked to it. The simplicity of
not seeing feminism as an extravagant concept is heart-warming. It is from
within these women the fire ignites on its own.
We are
all patriarchs:
Being
a woman doesn’t guarantee being anti-misogynist. We are all the reason for
carrying forward the legacy. Though men favour highly through this patriarchal
system and are hell bound on keeping it intact, it is the women who do this
either by manipulation or ignorance that wreaks havoc. This can be
understood when looked upon the reactions from women on the recent Sabarimala
verdict allowing women inside the temple. Most of the women are convinced that
they are 'impure'. It is the comfort they find in this slave mentality that
plummets the growth of any societal reforms. Here our protagonists are nothing
short of this hypocrisy. Bijili warns Rani that her son frequents her brothel,
Rani slaps bijili claiming that she was indeed staining the men in her village.
Thanks to women blaming women for every fault of men.
There is
another scene where Gulab rapes his wife Janaki on their wedding night.
[Reminder:Marital rape is still not a crime in India.] Rani hears this in
horror but does nothing. After all she believes her son has the 'right' to do
so.
Sex is
not a crime:
As someone
rightly said, “Indians freak out hearing the word 'sex' but guess what, we dint
become the most populated country by pollination”. Yet this is a least touched
topic. We don’t even encourage our schools to educate children about sex, let
alone discuss. From crafting one of the protagonist as a sex worker to shedding
lights on extra marital sex, marital rapes and homo sexuality, this movie
ventures into a zone that is not yet trespassed by popular cinema.
Lajjo, who
is always mocked by her husband and the rest of the village as ‘sterile’,
musters up the courage to try her luck with another man. Her friends who were
encouraging ask her why she wants a child. The reason she gives will go down in
history as the most straight forward opinion. There is no fancying of
motherhood or womanhood. She simply says, if she can, she should. If she
cannot, that is also fine, but why should she be deprived from something if she
has the potential. The Hindu Epics can throw us ample such examples. But we
revere them so much that we dare not discuss those topics. We scale everything
as per our pre conceived standards that we fail to look at greater truths. Back
to the story, Lajjo enjoys the one-night stand she shares with the man and is
vocal about it. The conscience with which she does is clear. More amazing is
her encounter with her husband when he learns that she had slept with another
man. This truth dawns on him as she says that she was conceived. So we are
shown that he always knew that he was 'sterile' yet put the onus on Lajjo and beat
her for not having a child. Lajjo still confidently asks him that they can
forget that and have the kid as their own.
If it were
a more sophisticated version as sperm-donation, the average mind would not declare that
shame. But for Lajjo, the crystal clear conscience is too hard to be shaken. It
is neither a crime nor shame. It is a necessity.
I will
not let what happened to me, happen to others:
Most of
the times, the harsh societal taboos are too strong to be broken, only because
we do not want them to go away. We turn blind, when a cruelty in the name of
'norm' happens; we keep mum because we know we have endured it already and are
not generous enough to stop it from happening to others, even if we have the full potential
to. This wicked intention is what drives us all for a not so changing future.
Gulab
makes it a habit to brutally rape Janaki regularly. Rani at one point remembers
that the same has happened to her with her husband. She sees the young Rani in
Janaki. That is when all hell breaks loose. She throws him out telling that her house
is not a brothel and Janaki is not a prostitute. Gulab doesn’t spare them from
cursing that they cannot live without a man (however useless he might be). Rani
realises that Janaki will not have a future here and boldly sells her house and
sends her with the boy who used to sneak peak her house equipping Janaki with
books, which were usually thrown away by Rani citing 'Girls who read make bad
wives'. Rani sends her away taking a promise from him that she gets proper
education. Going a step further, she removes the veil from Janaki's head and
says that it should not be required anymore, symbolically conveying the society can hell with its views and she has come a long way from her initial perspectives.
On the
other hand, Lajjo suffers the wrath of her infuriated husband. While
he tries to kill her, Rani comes to the rescue and both of them flee setting
him ablaze.
Bijili who
has had enough when learnt that the man who seemed to be in love with her only
wanted to be her pimp, breaks down and engages more in wooing customers. As a
result she is broken inconsolably and vows to never let that happen again.
The three
women having had their own part of sufferings and learning break free the
shackles and decide to run away to a faraway place, having convinced themselves that they
can do well without the judgemental society.
The reason
why this movie stands tall is for telling the feminist ideology from the
average rural Indian women's point of view. There is no fantasying the ideology
that someone so sophisticated gets all the credit for being a lone warrior that
they can change every man and woman and bring them up from their sorrowful lives. It is
from the women with all their baggage develop the nerve to fight against it. It
is their own selves that come as their savior. It is their attitude that
moulds them into something remarkable.
True liberation comes from the self-realisation that in our own lives we are our own knight in shining armors. As Rani, Lajjo and Bijili finally have their escapade, the knights in us come out taking us for a more promising future.
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| The real "Happily ever after" |
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