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| Image Credit: The Print |
It's been a while since I spoke about movies. This weekend the husband took me to watch this beautifully crafted piece, "Thappad", in the cinemas. A highly recommended watch indeed.
If you haven't been following the promotions and the reviews, Thappad takes on the not-so-casual issue of casual patriarchy, that runs through any average Indian's life.
We first see the protagonist, Amrita, through her every day routine, of a doting wife sustaining a man-child at home. We see her dorn in the adarsh-nari's kurta and chudidar's complete with the messy dupatta. (If it is by choice or by accident I am unsure. But it surely left an impression.) Her only flaw being she can't cook as well as the husband's mother. But in all other aspects she is the ideal wife, hovering over the husband in his presence, over his parents and the house in his absence.
The next few minutes are spent building upto the event of the slap, and that's when the movie begins questioning how we deal, not with domestic violence, but the idea that violence can be inflicted at will anytime. (is it just around the corner?)
While much effort has been put into scripting Tapasee's character, the husband is left shallow and more nuance there would have been appreciated (which comes only at the end). The character feels inauthentic and as if scripted to be callous perhaps.
But this glitch apart, the movie's forte is really the protagonist and her imploration to redefine patriarchy in today's times. A few decades earlier the focus of the fight against patriarchy was on women. There were calls for equal opportunity, right to education, employment and the like. They unanimously asked you to "raise your daughter as an equal".
Battling patriarchy today, however also demands that "you raise your son as an equal". That you fight casual patriarchy which begins with acknowledging that you are no one to grant or repeal a woman's rights and freedoms in your household. That the wife and the family are not punching bags. That a woman is on her own, a person - a sentient being, beyond being a wife, mother and a daughter. She has her own sets of emotions, and opinions and sometimes she cant just wish them away- not for love, not for family honour/grace; for it comes at the cost of her self respect and mental well-being. It requires, also that the familial support systems look at marital conflicts not with a lens of gender-based conditioning and prejudices but as conflicts between two individuals of an equal standing.
And "Thappad" does a wonderful job in highlighting these demands. It resists the allure to deliver sermons like most movies with social messaging love to indulge in, instead it allows you to dwell on bits leaving you mildly uncomfortable at some places and largely at others. Instead of a courtroom drama like in Pink, you are left with a series of characters that struggle to grapple with their own conditioning and the call of the protagonist to challenge it and rise to the occasion. It is this subtle handling of the characters that makes the movie strike a chord with the audience, albeit discordant with some.
If you wait till the end credits, you are left with an image where the protagonist's father hands her mother a harmonium (she has always wanted to sing, but left it for nurturing the family), an evocative hint to shift the view from daughters to partners and attempt to iron-out the creases left by years of conditioning.
It is rare to find movies that do justice to the story as well as the message, Thappad is one such, and duly deserved credits to Anubhav Sinha for bringing us this delight. Do watch it.
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