Tumhari Sulu: How Sulu’s ‘hello’ helps her find an identity

Sulu’s voice becomes her identity, bringing her to centre from the periphery, making her an object of desire without objectifying her or rendering her powerless. It becomes an instrument of empowerment.

Sulu’s voice gives her an identity in a way very few things do. It makes her feel desirable and wanted. It helps her earn and stand upto her bossy twin sisters.

There is a charming scene in Tumhari Sulu where the protagonist Sulu aka Sulochana Dubey, played by Vidya Balan, calls up her husband and asks him to come back home early. The scenario is not out of the ordinary. It is afternoon and it is one of those calls in the middle of the day that the husband, deeply immersed in work, would receive out of habit and the wife, whose life revolves around her husband and children, will remember to make. And yet this time, the husband is jolted from his work-enforced stupor. He excuses himself, goes to a corner and blushes. It is still one of those perfunctory calls, but the words chosen by her is different. Sulu, speaking close to the phone, almost teasingly asks him, “jaldi aaogey na? bolo na?” It is his wife all right, but he can no longer recognise the voice and least the tone. He obliges, almost timidly and lost in thought, flashes a smile at a mannequin.

In many ways, Tumhari Sulu is a film about realisation of ambitions and dreams, of middle-class aspirations and an enduring companionship of two people who met when still in school. But it is also about those several nameless middle-aged housewives we often encounter on the road. Those who appear on the road waving goodbye(s) to their children, looking wistfully as the school bus departs and who spend their evenings poring over school notebooks, taking account of their daily activity in their school. Sulu is one of them. Sulu is that woman.

She failed in the 12th standard, a fact her elder sisters do not forget to remind her and even though she has a loving husband, her name does not feature in the nameplate — Mr and Mrs Ashok it says. Sulu is not an over-achiever and certainly not an underachiever. She is fairly content doing her household chores, taking her afternoon naps and participating in the many competitions (Lata Mangeshkar Sad Song Contest) she ends up winning. Amidst all this, however, lies her scattered identity. She is the wife, the mother and to the shopkeeper nearby she is synonymous to her house number.

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Perhaps this is why when she says “Hello”, stretching on the vowels, the effect it causes astounds her. Her voice – full-throated and husky – not only enables people to look beyond, what is often-considered an conventional and hence banal attire, but also coaxes her husband to break into a jig at the sight of her after rushing from office. It makes her aware of her own sexuality, and in this case her agency.

Sulu’s voice gives her an identity in a way very few things do. It makes her feel desirable and wanted. It helps her earn and stand upto her bossy twin sisters. It also enables her to be the rare confidante people pour their hearts out to at solitary nights, and be the woman young men unflinchingly choose even when they are self-confessedly spoilt for choice.

Sulu’s voice then becomes her identity, bringing her to the centre from the periphery, making her the object of desire without objectifying her or rendering her powerless. It becomes an instrument of empowerment for her. When one of the listeners, rather haplessly asks for her number, Sulu, speaking close to the mic, haltingly says 100 and disconnects the line with a triumphant gesture. Her voice, intangible as it is, becomes the device that help her explore her sexuality, making her aware of tricks she always seemed to know but had never tried.

“Hello, Sulu se kaun baat karna chahta hain?” she asks. Although it might seem like a question directed to listeners at large, let’s not get fooled by it. It is Sulu who calls the shot here.

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