Opinion All things fair and un-ugly: Gangubai Bollywood wadi

It is in this world that Gangubai Kathiawadi belonged, and beat it enough times to earn a bust with a plaque in her room in Kamathipura, a chapter in a book on the Mafia Queens of Mumbai, and a film on her.

The choice of Alia Bhatt is not incidental. She is the ideal child-woman

Shalini Langer

March 20, 2022 11:10 PM IST First published on: Mar 20, 2022 at 03:20 AM IST

You don’t forget the grime, lining the walls, covering the steps. You don’t forget the patches in between, rubbed shiny clean from the hands and feet of the many, many who have passed over these stairs. You don’t forget the faces of those who never left, who have surrounded themselves with portraits of gods and posters of film stars — sharing an equal pedestal in warren-like rooms, in this final defiance by the women whom the world forgot. And you don’t forget, what they can’t forget: all the little things about that world.

These are the women of Delhi’s G B Road, from an afternoon decades ago. Even to the naive eyes of a group of us college students, they were women who made us uncomfortable, for not falling easily into any neat, familiar brackets.

They were lonely but remarkably close knit; they were sad but not as unhappy as we wanted them to be; they were as uncertain of the law as sure of the ways around it; they lived in conflict with society but had society already figured out; and they wore their sexuality on their sleeve, not behind some wardrobe malfunction.

It is in this world that Gangubai Kathiawadi belonged, and beat it enough times to earn a bust with a plaque in her room in Kamathipura, a chapter in a book on the Mafia Queens of Mumbai, and a film on her.

But who is this person clad in virginal muslin and linen whites, uncreased by the passing years and a halted life, in shiny hair, glowing skin, un-widening waist and un-sagging body, tinkling tunefully along at all times in her ample bangles and anklets?

This is Gangubai sanitised and whitewashed for our viewing pleasure, forever young, forever pretty, forever shorn of not just the greys but the audacious hues of the rainbow that must have seen her past many a cloud, forever seeking approval, forever the girl one could bring home — but for the fact that one, of course, wouldn’t.

She may have made deals with the underworld, sold liquor during prohibition, overthrown her brothel madam, duped policemen, overturned local politics and survived assaults, but in this woman-as-goddess or woman-as-witch worldview, all that logically follows from power play such as this must happen off-camera.

On Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s camera, Gangubai must fit uncomplicated conventions — the heroine who is not just better dressed, combed and read than the rest, but is also, most strikingly, the fairest of them all.

And if the unsmirched Gangubai is not enough convention for this fairytale, there are the “evil” others — far removed from the pristine perfection of Gangubai. Seema Pahwa’s every ounce of weight, bead of sweat, strand of unkempt hair, sequin on sari is an exaggeration; Vijay Raaz as the transgender who also takes Gangubai on, as much of a caricature. Another brothel resident who confronts Gangubai, leaning on the wrong side of the weighing scale, is already getting there. The men are generally heartless louts who, by Gangubai’s logic, would go around on a raping rampage but for brothels like hers providing them a sexual outlet.

Gangubai is allowed love, but no desire. She has a touching romance with a boy on the streets, and the back of a car, but no quickie on the bed. She kisses another, who is clearly besotted with her, but on the forehead. There is a suggestion that mixing love and work is difficult for her — but the boy doesn’t protest, and who are we?

So what are we to take away from this supposedly feminist take, apart from the fact that Gangubai had an astonishingly good taste, good tailor, and good foresight to see exactly what would work well as muted, urbane 21st century fashion? That women be girls, listen to daddy or, alternatively, find a sugar daddy, think twice before you elope, love children or better still get them to love you, and never, ever grow old or fat.

The choice of Alia Bhatt, good as she is, particularly in conveying the dilemmas that she is not allowed to play out, is not incidental. In her, Bhansali has an ideal child-woman, the vulnerable damsel whom everyone wants to protect, the fair maiden ready to be moulded into whatever shape the world has for her.

There is just one disturbing scene where Bhansali turns the mirror around, at us. When a row of girls are getting ready to turn into women of the night, hiding their scars and shadows behind powder, rouge and lipstick, before lining at the brothel door to beckon customers. A girl shows Gangubai just how to stand there — an arm resting above, breasts thrust out, skirt hitched up, a leg bent at the knee, her hand beckoning, her lips moving.

There stands a girl calling out men going about their business, with fingers that twitch and a sound seeking attention that one won’t forget in a hurry. It’s easy to love Gangubai, the saviour in a sari. Can we hold this girl’s gaze?

(National Editor Shalini Langer curates the ‘She Said’ column)