Just finished watching ‘Salaam-e-Ishq’. Yup. The
Bollywood movie which was released in 2007. And my feminist side can’t help being
over-active right now. I don’t get it, what is wrong with Indians? I don’t
understand how in the end, almost every female character surrenders herself to
her husband/boyfriend/taxi driver. For those who haven’t watched it, lemme sum
it up. Juhi Chawla takes back her husband who was essentially cheating on her.
Ayesha Takia marries her boyfriend who wants nothing more than to enjoy his
bachelor status forever. The foreigner who came all the way from States to
marry her boyfriend ends up proposing her taxi driver. So what if he helped her
throughout? There’s a very basic thing called standard of living, and theirs
are as different as they come. And the worst case is Priyanka Chopra’s. She
gives up her entire career just to get married to the man she loved coz he
asked her to choose between the two. What kinda man does that?
Now I have really started to think that possibly, Indian
cinema is hugely responsible for the demeaning status of women in our society.
Does the success of a woman’s life depend only on the fact whether she gets a
good husband? Does a woman become a joke if her husband is cheating on her? And
do we make a wrong decision if we choose our career over our man? I don’t think
so! If I’m getting a great college/job and my guy asks me to leave everything
and stay with him as a housewife and I refuse, does it make me heartless? No,
it does not! Then why does our film industry think so? Except for a handful of
women oriented movies, does it have hopefully, anything in its pocket to defend
itself? If they use the old saying that movies are mirror of society then lemme
tell you, it’s completely the other way round today. Youngsters think its okay
to pester a girl coz ultimately she will come around seeing their persistence.
Men think its okay to cheat on their wives coz they are sure she’ll forgive him
even if she comes to know of it. After all, she’s a ‘bhartiya naari’. Perhaps the girls who suffer the most are college
going girls. I’m sure no explanation is needed here. Sadly, our society is
changed so much that women find faults with themselves even if they are the
victim.
It was really nice watching the whole film industry gather
to pay respect to the Delhi braveheart. But I keep on wondering why can’t they
come forward and ask the government to take some concrete steps towards proper
punishment for rapists? We, as common public, can only protest and sign
petitions and we did it. But these people have power; they know they will be
followed in whatever they do. So why don’t they? Some of them are even MPs.
They can initiate the whole process in the Parliament; simply shedding tears
once in a while here and there won’t do. On a positive note, kudos to Mr. Javed
Akhtar for his words and actions during that time.
I really believe that movies can bring a change in the mindset
of people. We can teach some misguided souls that it’s not a girl’s fault that
she was raped. And hopefully, with time, our scientists (who are supposed to be
the intelligent sect) and saints (who are supposed to be the spiritual sect)
will understand that it’s right if a girl protests against getting raped and
there’s no way that the rapists will become here brothers. Till then, it
continues to pain me as I see some girls watching videos of Honey Singh and
drooling over him as his remarks get more and more derogatory.
