Hello Shashank,
I read you are riding high on the success of Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya. Did I misspell
the title of your film?
It does not matter. Your film was far from perfect
too, therefore the error seems acceptable.
So, has your film minted an insane number of crores
already?
That does not matter either. You will anyway claim
that it has.
I only want to take this opportunity to let you know
that your supposed entertainer left me with a bad taste like few mainstream,
posh-banner-supported films have in as long as I can recall. You started well:
your disclaimer told us your team is anti-dowry. You neatly described how the
average Indian girl is a liability to her family. Wow, your female lead
actually had a career she aspired to; that in itself was a near revolution.
Further, you had what an average movie-goer like me looks for in a film: rib
tickling comedy, well built up romance, and a stage nicely set for heartbreak.
And then, the morality of your film tanked like the
substance in your story, and I will try not to talk about the latter. When your
hero was shown pursuing the lady he was hell bent upon marrying, I presumed the
story was going to be about how a man who did not understand the difference
between proposing and stalking would ultimately be taught a thing or two about
respecting a lady’s right to refuse. Therefore, I waited. I waited whilst he
badgered her in a crowded bus one scene after she threatened him with
molestation charges in a video. I waited whilst he landed in Singapore, abducted
her, drove her to a riverbank and lunged at her throat. Even after she
challenged him with the task of taking on his father for her sake, after which
he instead went ahead and made another sorry mess of himself by picking a fight
with a guy on the street (and dragged her to the police station yet again), I
waited.
Frankly by this time, a common man who needed a ‘hero’
as a shield to justify his everyday misogyny had got enough handy material for Harassing Women – The Badri Way. It
would be foolhardy to imagine this common man would selectively commit the
film’s final message to memory where the hero makes a measly attempt to say a
thing or two about gender equity. But let us grant you this foolhardiness too.
Let us get to the most important point.
What were you thinking, Shashank, when you inserted an
absolutely meaningless – but more pertinently – an extremely distasteful scene
where the said man was being molested on the streets, a comic instrumental
theme playing in the background? What were the other characters in your film
thinking when they giggled on arriving at the scene? You made a lame attempt at
defending yourself by giving some
razzmatazz about your character being stripped of his izzat. If this was important, you would rather have robbed him of
his dignity by taking him through the journey of his lady’s dedication towards
her dream, which would have granted him some screen time for some much needed
self-introspection. Even if a line of argument were to tell me the scene
afforded him the realization of a woman’s izzat,
I still see you on a sticky wicket: because the comic angle accorded to the
sequence only goes to show you know nothing about izzat.
A more believable explanation instead is that you had
fallen short of substantial storytelling in the second half. Where the first
half had some legitimate scenes and one-liners to crack us up, the latter half
was threatening to fall flat on its face. Ergo, desperate measures made way for
this horrendous scene, with no links to preceding or following parts of the
script. And you thought it would be funny.
Male rape
is a reality, Shashank. Educate yourself. Just because it does not call for
candlelight vigils, television debates and short films where members of your
fraternity stick their heads out to express solidarity, does not mean it is
worth any trivialization at your hands. Twenty years ago, scenes showing women
being raped and molested were normalized and accepted. Today, such a scene in one
of your films will get people to have a go at you, for good reason. I sincerely
hope we do not need to wait another twenty years before a certain Badri being
molested in a film sparks similar outrage.
I am all for masala entertainment, I really am. But then,
I would appreciate such filmmakers not taking a moral high ground in the very
film where women are stalked, heroes are violent in their pursuit, and the
molestation of a man is considered to provide comic relief. Because when you do
so, you are being a do-gooder who is at risk of failing to explain a narrative
that tries to shed light on women’s rights without first understanding the
meaning of human dignity.
What a pity, really, that this film was sanctioned
under the banner of this flamboyant producer who is at every conclave
representing New India, whose chat show resonates with the rich and the elite,
and who claims he is ready to stand inthe front row to cure an epidemic as grave as rape.
