Just returned from a late night soirée with my girl gang. We spent the evening watching the latest Ode to woman kind-Neerja. The girls could be seen wiping tears off at every frame despite Neerja proclaiming in Kaka style,"I hate tears Pushpa". Well, none of them were Pushpa though but just...
The movie for me was lot of things together. It was Sonam on her yet another flat as a man chest acting spree. It was Shabana in her emotionally stoic best again. It was a fantastic lesson in service before self reminding me at times of 26/11. But what stuck with me was the soliloquy by Shabana portraying Neerja's mother towards the end of the movie on how we bring up our girls. Yes, she was so right...we tell our girls to run away on the first threat to modesty and then to life. No points for guessing why. It is the way the society functions. It is the way women especially mothers keep the daughters cocooned in the protective environs of family. In the movie, if Neerja's mother was her weakness, her father was her strength. If even 10% of what is displayed in the movie as the role of father is true, I salute the man. He instilled in his daughter the courage to stand up against the wrong and be brave always. And that learning came to rescue Neerja when the time beckoned. When Neerja comes back with her husband to her family seeking support in divorcing the lunatic, her mother cajoles her into working it out because that is how it ought to be. Girls are born to adjust and compromise. I went back into the story to believe my ears if it said Neerja was a successful model. So much for being a smart, savvy, financially independent girl. And she does try to make things work by subjugating to domestic violence, emotional torment, living life of a slave. And amidst all this her dad who encouraged her to walk out and move on. What a marvel the man is.
The movie had all of us girls debating if we would do what Neerja did. Well, sounds easier said than done but some of us turned cold turkey even at the thought of it. Reason...why take a panga. Thanks to our upbringing, maybe. With so much talks of empowerment around, breaking of glass ceilings, gender diversity and women welfare this movie was a jolt that shook me out of reverie. The education needs to start at home. We need to make our women stronger and responsible. We need to make them capable of pulling their own chairs and not wait for chivalry to happen. Women were not born only to reproduce, they are an equally rather more responsible and Multi tasked segment of our society. We need to condition our women In reducing our dependencies on men folk to make us feel secure. Independence, more than financial needs to be mental and emotional.
And yeah...hang on... Is that a lizard I see in the corner of my room. Oh my gawd!! Let me go and fetch a man to shoo it away while I put my sermon on women liberation on hold. After all we should not be making man kind completely redundant either.
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