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Journalism of Courage
The feeling of lust is not exclusive to men. Yet, women rarely express it. Most certainly, never like a group of male friends discussing their passionate stirrings or their attraction and liking for someone. Women would probably
giggle and mention the little crush they have on an acquaintance, teacher, colleague, celebrity or a sportsperson, casually. Most women are quite skilled at hiding their longings, suppressing or dismissing them altogether. After all, good girls can’t be lusty.
That’s why an omnibus of four short films told by as many prominent directors of Hindi cinema — Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee and Karan Johar — which released on Netflix under the title, Lust Stories, on June 15, is refreshing. Woman characters and their desires are at the heart of each of these stories. Their desires are not always of the sexual kind. Instead, they are associated with a search for their identity, struggle to live on their own terms and discovering life’s many pleasures.
Kalindi (Radhika Apte) in Kashyap’s short is a professor in a long distance and open relationship. She is not able to handle her dalliances with as much ease as her husband can. Her experiments are ridden with guilt. Her contradictory behaviour hardly helps the matter, making her struggle to make sense of the complex matter of man-woman relationships. After Kalindi’s questioning, Akhtar introduces Sandhya (Bhumi Pednekar), a domestic help, who silently accepts her social class and exploitation and, thus, exposes the deep-rooted discriminatory attitude of society. Interestingly, the only time you see Sandhya, a domestic help, holding equal power as her employer is when they are in bed. When he calls her “gandi saali”, her prompt retort is “nanga saala”.
Banerjee’s story is more about a woman’s search for space, maybe take a break from being a mother and wife that the society has assigned to her. Reena (Manisha Koirala) tries to reclaim her life, for a while, when she secretly spends some time with her husband’s best friend. While she seems to be prepared to face the consequences, it’s the men who have a problem accepting it.
Johar presents a delicious take on how Indian men remain oblivious to women’s desires. True to his style, his women strut around in dangerously low blouses while men appear bewildered. The guardians of society try to make the women fit into a box but no force of nature can be controlled.
This film brings together fun, poignant and introspective tales that attempt to unravel the mysteries of women’s heart.
