BOOK REVIEWS

MOTHER MAIDEN MISTRESS: WOMEN IN HINDI CINEMA, 1950-2010

Author: Bhawana Somaaya, Jigna Kothari and S Madangarli

Publisher: HarperCollins,

Price:Rs 299

The book beautifully showcases the role of women in Hindi cinema, how they got marginalised and how they are making a comeback again, writes Utpal Kumar

Forget Khans, Devgns and Roshans. Last few months have been about a woman, Vidya Balan aka Silk Smitha. Her film, The Dirty Picture, has won for her practically all the awards this season. The National Awards jury, too, fell for its ‘women-oriented’ content, till the I&B Ministry realised that it was an adult movie totally unsuitable for the prime-time slot on television!

The movie, no doubt, is centred on a female character, but can hardly be called women-oriented or path-breaking, as it is made out to be. With an ordinary script and extraordinary Balan act, it has made us believe that we are doing ‘bold’ cinema just by shedding clothes in a movie. It grabbed eyeballs of sex-starved male audience desiring to see a woman in the least of clothes, struggling (or at least pretending to do so) to hide her ‘assets’. Balan’s other three films — Kahaani, No One Killed Jessica (with Rani Mukherjee) and Ishqiya — seem better placed for that (women-oriented) tagline. And their box office exploits, along with movies like Fashion and Black, have brought the feeling that women are finally getting their due in Bollywood.

This, however, is far from true.

At least, that’s what one gets to know — and rightly so — after reading the book, Mother Maiden Mistress: Women in Hindi Cinema, 1950-2010, by Bhawana Somaaya, Jigna Kothari and Supriya Madangarli. Yes, Hindi cinema, as we know it, has been mostly about boys and boy-bonding, with the leading lady being no more than a sidekick. Even when she is the lead, she is shown suffering Sita-like, carrying the burden of social values and family norms (Mother India is the perfect example). One wonders why we can’t have a female version of Dil Chahta Hai and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, or even a biographical film, say, on Indira Gandhi on the lines of Meryl Streep-starrer The Iron Lady.

The scenario wasn’t so pitiful initially. Between 1930 and 1960, Hindi cinema was more realistic and forward-looking. This was particularly the case in the 1930s when most films — Samaj Ki Bhool (1934), Indira MA (1934), Hunterwali (1935), Barrister’s Wife (1935), Jawani Ki Hawa (1935), Achhut Kanya (1936), Amar Jyoti (1936), Duniya Na Mane (1938), among others — were women-oriented in nature.

This trend continued in the 1940s and ’50s, though one could see the woman slowly getting relegated to the secondary position. One could even see such transformations in the movies of the rather progressive Guru Dutt. In his initial films, Baaz being the most prominent wherein the ever-exuberant Geeta Bali played a pirate queen, women characters had their individual identities. They were intelligent and lived their lives on their terms. In his later movies, however, Guru Dutt became judgemental, talked about Indian versus Western values (Mr & Mrs 55) and, worse, the woman lost her individuality to become a tool of salvation for the male protagonist (Kaagaz Ke Phool).

Women protagonists, however, continued to hold their own with films like Andaz (starring Dilip Kumar, Nargis and Raj Kapoor), Mother India (Nargis, Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Kumar) and Bandini (Nutan, Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra). It was the arrival of the macho hero in the 1970s that changed it all.

With the emergence of the ‘Angry Young Man’ during Mrs Gandhi’s regime when the country saw the total negation of Nehruvian idealism, the woman was pushed to the margins.

She could find her place in a film just to entertain the hero, support him whenever he was down, and then silently step aside to let him fight the villain.

It continued till the late 1990s when the emergence of young filmmakers and multiplexes brought about a change.

Such was the regressive influence of the era that even young filmmakers like Sooraj Barjatya and Karan Johar fell for it. In Barjatya’s Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), for instance, Salman Khan was shown as a rich boy in love with a simple, hard-working girl who would always wear Indian clothes. The film followed the conventional pattern: The ‘bad’ girl would be dressed in a flashy, Western attire. She would often be shown to be spoilt, arrogant girl who would drive her car carelessly and need an upright Indian man to ‘tame’ her. Soon after meeting the hero, she would throw away her Western outfit for the Indian dress. Even in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Rani Mukherjee, after returning from London in a miniskirt, had to prove her Indian-ness by singing a devotional Hindi song!

The ’80s might have been “the decade of the lost generation” for the authors, but they take consolation from the fact that the era also witnessed the flowering of the parallel, middle-of-the-road cinema — Arth, Mandi, Bazaar, Mirch Masala — “that won the day for women protagonists”. The book eloquently showcases how the late ’80s saw the death of parallel cinema and how the ’90s resulted in very few noteworthy female protagonists — one can hardly remember anything beyond Rudaali, Mrityudand and Dushman.

Yes, women have started getting meaningful roles and things look rosy today, but they still have a long way to go before they get their due on the silver screen. Till then we will have to contend with The Dirty Picture and call it ‘bold’, women-oriented cinema.

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