Literary Criticism/Theory - 2

Quest of identity and self-respect

in

Anubhav Sinha’s film

“THAPPAD

(bas itani si bat”)

Introduction

Jim Rohn has quoted, “Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” But Paulo Coelho says, ‘The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. That’s why we go to movies and say, “oh, the book is better.” If we say literature is x-ray image of society, there is always covered reality into literature while films are actual mirror of society and so society is used to say ‘It is just films, nothing at all. Actually this is what everything at all.’ Certainly there are movies which leads us towards aristocratic world, but there are movies which are needed to read rather than watch and whenever matter comes of reading or studying it itself becomes much significant than surface. Sometimes this kind of film readings wants to reach reality or wants to bring the change into society. As we know, 21st century is the century of knowledge, revolution and technology. Now even idea of feminism seems very ridiculous, meaningless and useless. Women are reaching to the stars but what about patriarchy which is used to encode from one generation to another. Women are still considering as Simon De-Beauvoir said ‘second-sex.’

In this present time, condition is similar for women just situations and manners are changed. The question is only that what if, if woman is at the position instead of man? If answer of this question lead towards nothingness then why we are not accepting problems as problem itself? Namrata Joshi reviews that, Thapped is throwing punch at patriarchy.

This assignment intentions to read ‘Quest of identity and self-respect in Anubhav Sinha’s film-Thappad’.

Thappad prompts you to question the relationship dynamics between a man and woman, and makes you uncomfortable: Have we normalized far too many things?

Now let’s bring into being our discussion.

As mind is not the problem but mindset is problematic, instead of saying the film Thappad, Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad attempts to explain that it is not simply the only slap. If it is just a single slap, it should be questioned and unacceptable but entirety that the response to such violence that is problem. Ultimate question is, women also want same need & rights as men. Sometimes it becomes very obvious to hit girlfriend or wife. When family and friends minimize the violence of the act, it is detrimental not just to the woman in question, but to society as a whole. Even within the strictures of a traditional marriage, the agency of women must be recognized as important. Covered violence against women within families and especially from spouse is a massive problem in Indian Society.

Thappad is not only unjust about a slap, but about its male privilege. Simple narrative technique perhaps emphasis upon slap, especially upon just a slap but rather its encoded meaning questions social conditioning by both men and women. To discourse it, it is essential for women themselves to recognize that they must have equal respect in every relationship; nothing less is conventional.

Whenever it comes to think, what is required in life, this question becomes hollow without the identity of a person and crucial question is, what is this identity?  Is anything else than social status, self-respect or self-assurance?  Of course nothing more but we live in a society where all this is part of a person's identity but if one is a man!  If there is a woman, her self-esteem, honor and status are tied with her husband or father.  It presents a nude picture of such a reality and not for anything else on the screen of the cinema but for the fight for self-esteem and respect, that is Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad.

If you haven’t watch THAPPAD still, please must have a look on this trailer.

Even if a wife talks in a loud to her husband among of all, and if her husband does not even try to know what the problem actually it is, as part of rationality, it will prove good in the definition of self-esteem of man. But if we just change the women instead of man, she will be proving as arrogant, arrogant and arrogant!  Just comes in the form of a self-deprecating woman.  Anubhav Sinha has begun lifting up the curtains one by one, beginning to uncover reality and perhaps that's why his films are going to flop instead of what should be a block-buster.   People found the trailer boring, as justifying the demand for a woman's divorce for a slap is itself a matter of joke.  And yes, I do not have the slightest desire to relate this to the violence of the years ago, but if the curtains that are lifted do not find any support, then there is no need for proof to prove that we are preparing this generation for the 19th century. If this makes us laugh, there is certainly highly problematic because laughter is device and weapon at deeper level!

Thappad - bas itani si bat!

This film questions against the unwritten but encoded rules in marriage.

Thappad, as if the slap itself is on the mindset of this society, on the name of safety from the society and also upon on the stigma imposed by the society.

The most effective parts of the film are the ones in which we are shown just how women are always being told how to feel, how to keep their feelings in check, how not to give into them. It’s not just Amrita who is dealing with ‘sirf ke thappad hi toh tha’, and how Vikram (the husband) who slaps her is ‘only’ taking out his workplace frustration on her. The film also pays attention to the other women who are in Amrita’s orbit; how her lawyer (Sarao), and her mother, and mother-in-law have dealt with their own disappointments, and how the maid (Ohlyan), who is routinely beaten by her drunken husband, has learnt to combat it.

Quest of identity and role of camera in THAPPAD

Moving inside from the artistic point of view then not just the actors’ acting or the sets raised afterwards, the camera's ambition to show that set makes the filmmaker's intention clear, perhaps even vision, and perhaps it does not seek for only identity and feminism but also for gender equality. A loose end for a slap and finally gets divorce at the end, means a happy ending. So, what is it like to watch?   The question starts with this happy ending, is it really a happy ending?  Can a woman get happiness in this society even if she has what she wants?

When it comes to film, the camera becomes so important that one picture is equal to thousands words and that is why the experience gives scope to these words only in Sinha's films where they suffer in silent suffering.  Their attempt is not to insert a new ideology but to break a polluted mindset that we have simply accepted as truth.  If we want proof of this, let’s take another travel to this movie.  When Amruta's father comes to the scene working in the kitchen, it is not as groundbreaking as some of the innovators but if a man does housework, there is nothing special about it.  He moves the veil as if doing some favor by working part of.  The female character in the camera suddenly blurs when talk is being made at the table at the time of the meal and when the discussion takes place of serious discussion.  The camera in this film is not only fixed on housework but also to show that the responsibility of housework in this society is female.  Over the years, with the passing of time, the male character stands at a top in his life and his daily routine is changing even though the female character also works with the male, but in her daily routine, her behavior or even her partner’s behavior, change is not worthy to note. Means nothing change at all.

 Is it just because she works at home or because she accepts the housework assigned to her?  All the women who live by accepting the fact that they are truly happy in their lives think once and for all, the pain of the golden cage becomes unbearable.

Even Sinha does not forget that if such a case starts happening, then more than half of the marriages in India will end.  But the question is, should they afford such slaps?  Of course, this is probably at the heart of the film, with no assurance that justice, honor, self-esteem and status will be returned as a result of not being tolerated.

Fare play & self-respect

Fare play, as if it is at the center throughout the film, but the father of the main character (Amrita-Tapasi Pannu) has a very broad thinking.  Even after interacting with Amrita and her husband, Vikram, after slapping Amrita, Sinha has shown the camera's buzzing words, the words of Vikrama and the face of Amrita!  What turned out to be just an unexpected experience of humiliation that has been conducted in Amrita's life, Vikram decided to leave the company.  If a man does not need anyone's permission to leave work from the place where he works, then why should a woman have to get permission to leave her place permanently?  If the place where it works for a man can be instinctively accepted as a company, why can't the woman name the as a company to home?  Don’t you think home is also a company?  If a man can carry a woman into his or her own success, why does the perspective change when the man becomes a woman's tag?  Can a man not have a woman's tag?  Otherwise why anyone should make each other tag!

Significance is that if women play fare play, will they be given not justice but equality at all?

Choice or politics of choice:

Sinha includes very subtle dialogue through Amruta, to be housewife was her choice but at the very end of the film he himself questions that was it really her choice or her choice was politicized? No one is asking that why each and every girl wants to be housewife ultimately? Do women like to do household works instead of working outside? As it is said, experience is the best teacher. Only believe, if you have heard and seen. But what if, your experience, choice and thinking is also controlled by patriarchy!

‘He Just Slap You’.

The woman is only woman when the talk comes to home. Doesn’t matter there is a senior lawyer, a homeowner or a working woman or housewife.  Is the love received in the name of honor and self-esteem really worthy of even the name of love?

Quest of identity as a whole

The movie brings these subtle insights through not just its lead pair, but through several parallel stories involving Amrita’s parents, her mother-in-law, her house helper maid, the equation of Amrita’s brother with his fiancé and her lawyer who is struggling with her own personal conflicts, while putting up a bold face to the world. Thappad also takes a clever insult the infamous stance on how slapping each other can be an expression of love in a couple through one of its characters.

तन्ने मारने के लिए मुझे लाइसेंस चाहिए का?!

It is said that he is the true artist who can transform the reality of life, compassion, suffering into his art.  If you want to get to the root of the fact that film is an art, then you have to go to films like Vijay Sinha's Book, ARTICLE 15, Mulk and Gulab Gang.  If desired, the film could have been more interesting and attracted more audiences, a two-item song could have come and even a bit of romance, but the truth that pervades the heart of reality, where is the truth?

Really this is the Thappad over the SLAP!

If one can slap, why another can’t ask for justice even?

Conclusion

To sum it up, 'Thappad' is a silent slap on our society's age-old belief — shaadi mein sab kuch chalta hain. But, honestly, should it be that way? And that is what we need to start talking about... now!

जो तटस्थ हैं समय उनके भी अपराध लिखेगा!

It’s significant to remember that Thappad has released only eight months after Kabir Singh, a celebration of misogyny that was the second-highest grossing Bollywood film of last year. In the dark by-lanes of status quo-reverential Bollywood, Sinha has lit a match. Now it’s up to the audience whether it wants to see the light.

Like the nature of that work, the film doesn’t make a big deal about those scenes – it simply repeats them as a matter of fact at least half-a-dozen times. So that we know, so that we realise. That is the best thing about Thappad: it shows us a reality, a story hidden in plain sight all along. A story so ubiquitous that we don’t even think of it as one.

Slap!

Does it really nothing else?

References

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory - an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory: Fourth. Manchester University Press, 2017.

BHARAT, MEENAKSHI. “PICTURE ABHI BAAKI HAI: Bollywood as a Guide to Modern India.” India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 1, 2015, pp. 151–154. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26316671. Accessed 8 Mar. 2020.

Dey Purkayastha, Pallabi. “Thappad Movie Review : An Impactful Social Drama That Questions the Unsaid Rules of Marriage.” Times of India, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/movie-reviews/thappad/movie-review/74290604.cms.

Dwyer, Rachel. Picture Abhi Baaki Hai: Bollywood as a Guide to Modern India. Hachette India, 2014.

Gupta, Shubhra. “Thappad Movie Review: Anubhav Sinha Film Is Important.” TheIndianEXPRESS, https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/thappad-review-rating-taapsee-pannu-anubhav-sinha-6287484/.