A SCENE FROM THE MOVIE
The protagonist, very troubled and in crucial point of her life, has come home to her parents. Her teenage brother who walks into the house, is happy to see her and exclaims, “Chechi! When did you come!” Then adds as an afterthought, ”Ma give me some water!” and the mother promptly passes the baton to her daughter and says, “Go get him some water to drink”
That one scene embodies all that is wrong with our society! To the ones who don’t see a harm in a boy asking for water, please imagine a scene when the daughter of the house is walking in. Would she demand that her mother or her brother serve her water or would she head straight to fridge and help herself? Even if she did ask would her mother ask her teenage brother to fetch her water? No! This at is the precise moment when the protagonist realizes that it’s the social norms which are unjust and not her “upbringing in gulf”.
The whole movie centers around a gulf returned family getting their daughter married to a highly respectable and traditional family where the mother-in-law is expected to give the toothbrush with the paste on it, to the father-in-law who left to himself, cannot even find the brush or the toothpaste or for that matter even his footwear. The trouble starts when the mother-in-law is called off to help her very pregnant daughter and the protagonist is left all to herself to cater to every need and habits inculcated in the traditional family by generations of men and women before them.
The beauty of the movie is that it shows very clearly how equal contribution by both the genders have inculcated the toxic patriarchy. It shows how if men are oblivious and entitled, women too revel in glorification of the uncompromising daily routines wrought into traditions. If one woman finds an escape in white lies and slipping through the loopholes of the traditions rather than confront it, another finds solace in belittling the modern women who don’t know anything about the traditions.
Another poignant point the movie makes is that that abuse and victimization need not be brutal like physical violence or dowry harassment or an incident as such. It could be slipped into day-to-day fabric with a mild, soft request to the daughter in law to cook rice in firewood stove or wash clothes manually and not in washing machine.
The whole film leaves us, the women, with questions like, “Yes our social system is a clogged drain but do we wait expecting the party least affected, to clear the clogs or do we decide to clean it ourselves?”
Why did the protagonist feel that an application of a job needs the “permission” of her husband or in laws?” Why did a Facebook comment by a family member cause furor in a family? Why must every family member adhere to single political view? And most important of all why do we women really wait and get frustrated about a clogged drain complaining and whining about it instead of unclogging it ourselves???