Sumera B Reshi
We are witnessing the sexploitation of women in buses, workplaces, in a family and everywhere. You know what; most dangerous are those who you trust. I narrate a story when I went to Plaza Park (name changed), New Delhi to get some fresh air.
We are witnessing the sexploitation of women in buses, workplaces, in a family and everywhere. You know what; most dangerous are those who you trust. I narrate a story when I went to Plaza Park (name changed), New Delhi to get some fresh air.
Indian cinema has of course produced some adept art pieces in the form of movies that portray real life on reel. I am not an ardent follower of Bollywood but quite recently I got a chance to watch a movie not very famous among India Bollywood lovers. This movie hasn’t made any buzz at the box office either, so there was no point in looking forward to it. At first I watched it to kill my time, but, later I realized how touching its concept was.
I realized how difficult it is to determine the character of an individual and how every colourful thing has shades of grey in it. Truly faces are often deceptive and many people live their lives but with multiple crises of character. After watching this movie I felt it is not at all that bad as I had thought of. Despite its rich concept, the movie at the box office proved a damp squib. I am talking about a movie produced under Yash Raaj Films and is named Laaga Chunari Main Daag.
I feel the movie is worth a watch not because I am a feminist or want to project views of fairer sex, but, because somewhere the story in the movie coincides with the real life. It is a story of a young girl, who despite poverty and helplessness wants to prove to her dad that she is equivalent to her male counterpart. Well, I argue that home is the first place where the real discrimination starts, the moment a girl is born. She is not a boy and that is why she can’t look directly into the eyes of her father.
Besides all this she is hell bent to strain herself for the heck of family. Seeing the desperation and despondency of her parents she decides to leave her home town to earn quick bucks. Her intentions are not to buy make up kits or other beauty accessories all girls of her age often do, but she feels she should earn to support her family which is in deep chaos. She saw a deep regret in the eyes of her father for not having a male child. She from insides regrets for not being a boy herself and not being able to share the burden of her father who keeps waiting for miracles out of blues.
This indifference of her father cut her through and like a man she takes a bold and firm decision to travel to city of dreams and earn hefty sum in order to keep her family’s heath and hearth running. Keeping her hopelessness in view, she also decides to leave her studies midways. The circumstances are such that she is forced to accept her destruction knowingly or unknowingly. In the name of employment she doesn’t have to pay a cash donation, she has to present herself instead before the man who offered her a job in return to her honour and dignity. Definitely this man belonged to a civilized society, man of letters and man of worth. Be a whore for one night and get a job next day is a norm nowadays everywhere on the earth.
What apathy, what a fate, what compensation she had to pay for a job. She is ruined forever not only physically but mentally as well. And this movie made me realize that we are back to Stone Age and the only distinction that differentiates us from a beast is that we are civilized demons and we ruin women in a modern way, using hi fi communication techniques. I am not narrating you a story where Katrina is totally missing from the scene and you are not interested at all.
The movie, however, has Rani Mukherjee as a lead lady. Neither am I trying to convince anyone to watch this movie. My argument is simple and that is whatever we see on reel has some bearing on our real life. There is some percentage of real life adaptations taken to illustrate the ills of our society. These things do happen in real life, every now and then.
We civilized men are fully aware of using information superhighways even to quench our sexual thirst. We, Homo sapiens make good use of communication to lay a trap for desperate, innocent and helpless lot, especially women.
We civilized individuals have mastered the art of utilizing communication (verbal or written) to win opposites for our own interest and at our own ease. Women have been lured in the name of job, friendship, relations and love. In the name of friendship she has to make certain compromises and in the name of love she has to satisfy men’s unending drive for animal instinct.
She has to go for love-making until her lover is full and she has to do it because we are in a super civilized world where nothing is impossible until we accept each other friends, lovers and soul mates, we can experiment with vicious ideas taken from the West unabated. Why? Because … Dil Tou Bacha Hain Ji aur Dil pa koi zorr nahi. The girl in the movie is not a borne whore rather she has been compelled to become sophisticated and hi fi courtesan to entertain man and get money in return.
She finds every way to help her family and in this quest she loses everything precious she possessed as a woman. She ultimately makes a very difficult decision, decision of becoming a sophisticated whore just to save her family inmates from destruction and to prove she too can take the burden of life like a man. She owns a bungalow and possesses every accessory of modern life but somewhere she regrets over the lost beyond repair.
We are witnessing the sexploitation of women in buses, workplaces, in a family and everywhere. You know what; most dangerous are those who you trust. I narrate a story when I went to Plaza Park (name changed), New Delhi to get some fresh air.
This park is particularly meant for Romeo’s and Juliet’s. In Plaza Park couples enjoy every freedom, freedom to break ethics, freedom to trespass parental care, freedom to show off modernity in the disguise of nudity. Anyways the park is full of amusement without ticket or any other expenditure. I recall a case when a girl was crying amid bushes.
Her cries were uncontrollable, with tears rolling down her cheeks like floods in suburban Mumbai. Out of curiosity and I, myself being a woman went closer to the bushes to learn what happened that made her cry like a petulant child. Using my brains wi fi network I got to know that she has been raped of her trust and then ditched by her boyfriend in the name some infirmity at home or in life.
He left her amid turmoil and she was ruined in the sacred name of love. Surely, she herself was involved in the act but then it can’t be altogether termed as a rape of trust but I would call it a moral rape. The boy in the name of love and for the sake of love wooed her to do nasty things or to make him happy.
What is wrong in doing all the nasty things when both of them feel for each other? This is the outlook nowadays. She wasn’t crying because she lost her chastity but she went mad because her lover married someone else instead of her. She cried like a hungry new born baby because her first love remained unfinished.
She couldn’t see her love blossom into a garden of colourful flowers. She saw the spring but couldn’t witness its summer. Autumn came so early to grab her first ever love and soon her love life went under a frozen mass of snow. I couldn’t bear the sight of that young girl. I couldn’t see the blood gushing out of her eyes in the form of sparkling tears. I was so sorry on her plight. I felt miserable for being a woman and being so weak to make her understand what went to her life was good for her. She seemed so much emotionally attached to a treacherous man who used her for his physical needs and then ran away.
According to the girl her boyfriend settled with his first love, his princess Diana. I felt so bad for her and was equally unable to wipe globs coming down her cognac eyes incessantly. Later I left the place with a heavy heart and eyes moist.
Throughout my way back to my hostel I kept thinking of the girl and the misfortune she has befallen even at the very onset of her love life. God Apollo wasn’t at all kind enough to her. Cupid struck her but she couldn’t get the loyalty of her Romeo. Her love couldn’t complete one full swing either.
It was not an absolute love but it ended unfinished with a deep hurt. In life we all see people with varied shades and speckled characters. No one over here is immaculate as we all claim to be. On that day, I realized our society is in Crises of Character. Tum nahi tou koi aur sahi, koi aur nahi tou koi sahi.
And that is why life to some people is so diverse and colourful that they are painless towards the miseries of others. They keep on changing their partners to stay healthy. They couldn’t see beyond their own selves. Ask them and they will counter argue, oh! It was just a majboori (helplessness). To them life is hit or miss and they keep on experimenting with newest ideas to woo people in the name of love.
The author is Associate Editor with The Legitimate.
