Lipstick under my burkha

Image courtesy IMDb 

Movie: Lipstick under my burkha

Date of Release: 21/07/2017

Duration: 1h57min

Director: Alankrita Shrivastava

Review

The movie begins with the narrator telling us about a girl named Rosy. While we hear about Rosy, we are visually introduced to the 4 protagonists on the screen – the Shop lifter, the Band Baaja Baarat – esque couple, the Sales woman and the Matriarch.

These four women form the core of the movie. The shop lifter is a burkha wearing, oppressed teenager who has been accepted into a prestigious college. At home she is the ideal little girl helping out at her parent’s burkha shop but once at college the burkha comes off and she’s in jeans, tees and sneakers. She loves Miley Cyrus and inside her is a little rebel that makes her shop lift sans conscience.

The BBBcouple has their work divided, the girl runs her own salon and the boy is a photographer. Together they set out to find a job where they both can be hired as a ‘set’ to accompany honeymooning couples and frame their memories for them. All of this is planned in their hopes to travel around the world for free.

The sales girl is a smooth talker who manages to make her way into homes and sell her products. She is a mother of three, with her husband almost always away from the country. To fill her days with purpose she becomes a sales woman and is amazing at what she does.

The matriarchalso known as Buaji, is the woman that everyone looks up to. Whenever there is a ‘situation’ at her residence, she is called for. She is feared and respected by all.

Four common people, with four very common stories. What makes Lipstick under my burkha different? To put it simply, it is just that - a simple story about things people rarely talk about.

Just the way men talk in gym lockers, women talk in beauty parlors. Just the way men like women in skimpy bikinis, women like men in skimpy swimming trunks. Just the way men put aside friendship and feelings to get to the other side, so do girls. The 4^th arch is a little difficult to explain because it deals with a topic that even the Supreme Court chooses to let slide – ‘marital rape’, where the husband has the urge to prove the prowess of his masculinity by getting his wife pregnant every time they have sex (Actually she’s just being raped but let’s be honest – most Indians think what is being shown on the screen is actually consensual even when the woman says no.).

As the story progresses we start to understand these women a little better. We understand why they just won’t walk away. We understand that in spite of being cloistered in their ‘family nest’ they are very liberal in their actions and thoughts except they aren’t very forthcoming in expressing it openly to the people in their families.

How long can ones feelings be suppressed? For how long can one hide underneath the burkha? As the story unravels, everything starts to crumble around the four protagonists – The tower of Pisa has finally fallen. Has it? The four sit together, share a smoke, read the last pages of Rosy’s story and believe that there is hope still and share a laugh and the credits begin to roll.

Life will be the same for the 4 of them unless they encounter like-minded people. Nothing in their life will change. Nothing in their life will change, unless the people around them also change and acknowledge that women are humans, have feelings and actually have a mind of their own just like they have a body of their own. They just have to wait out for a day when people accept that a woman’s mind and body are her own and that it is up to her to share it with anybody she willingly wants to.

My Rating: 3/5

Recommend: Yes, watch it. Watch it for Rathna Pathak and Konkana Sen Sharma.