The day I saw the first teaser and then the trailer of the movie Aapla Manoos, I had marked the date as a Must watch. Rarely I spend on movies. Prima facie it appeared to be a crime thriller. And Nana Patekar was in the lead. So this cannot be missed. But when I came out watching from the theatre the only question I am having uptil now is 'Why did I watch it?'
The thrill was nothing but mere comedy. It was an emotional story about the relationship between father and son. And I am not at all interested to spend in emotional movies. Though I am happy that the excruciating hours in the theatre ended, but still I am here is because I do have a reservation about the story of the movie. A typical partriachal society story wherein the women's arguments, no matter how much genuine and sane, are totally ignored just to gain sympathy for the father.
There are quite a few things I am seeing or realising these days which makes me wonder what exactly this marriage institution is? And I think I am coming to a conclusion that it is just a facade. A fake get together of two families who spent lakhs (Many by taking loans) just to prove some sort of invisible standard, pose with fake smiles, stocking up DPs and then go home. In the entire lifetime neither do the boys family except the girl and her family fully or vice versa. It's just a arrangement for two people to have sex legally.
When I had heard the word sarcasm for the first time, I believed that one has to be very intelligent to pass a sarcastic comment. But in marriage function, the boys family are PHD holders in making sarcastic comments. "Everything was perfect, except....". This except is said very casually by them. But the pun is intended and the pain felt by the girls family is really unimaginable. The mere thought that they might trouble their girl because of this 'Except' is equivalent to almost 1000s of knives pierced in one's heart. No matter how much you do, there are people who come to find out just the loop holes. And the idiotic part will be when our own parents will come and tell us to touch such type of people's feet and take their blessings.
Why is it considered wrong if you consider your parents as human beings and not God? I mean can't they do mistakes? Let's come to the movie. In the story there are four people. Nana Patekar plays the father. His son (lawyer) is married to a teacher and they have a kid. In the introduction scene the girl comes is late in reaching home on account of some meetings in school. Since she will be running late, she calls on the landline number of their house to inform the same. It turns out to be busy, consistently after repeated number of trials. Why? Because the father in law is speaking on phone to his friends. She then calls her husband to inform about her situation. And turns out that his phone is switched off. So when she finally returns her Father In Law (FIL) opens his book of sarcasm about how she is late and he isn't informed. How out of care he made calls to all her friends, her parents, their neighbours etc. He won't stop here. Further he continues about how she is late and his son has to do household chores, how she is working just to earn more, and how because of her work she can't look after her kid so he is kept in boarding school. He goes to such extent saying that she first broke away his child from him and then his grand child. She listens to everything, but after she starts giving reasons about how the landline was busy inspite of repeated attempts and his husband's phone was switched off, the FIL has nothing to answer. So what I feel is why should this be ignored. She had all the perfect reasons to justify her actions. So why should she listen to the wrong accusations. On the remarks of boy doing household chores the girl says, "If a boy listens and obeys his parents he is Shravan Bal. But if he listens to his wife he is termed as a toy of her". Again the FIL has nothing to answer. The girl then asks the FIL a simple question. "Did your boy do household chores before marriage?" FIL replied, "Negative. We tried everything but he never listened to us. All our efforts went in vain." So the girl asks then, "How is it that he started doing all household work post marriage? What are you upset about? That he is doing the work at home, which you always wanted him to learn. Or that he is doing work after I came in his life? This insecurity is the real problem." The FIL is still without comments.
But all the movie offers is we are not saying the elders are right all the time. But the real fact is do they ever agree that they were wrong? Atleast my experience says, Never. I remember in the book 2 States, there is a speech by the girls father in the end where he says, "Why do we get upset when our children decide to do love marriage? We dont think pragmatically. We are upset only because our ego's are hurt. How did our children took the biggest decision of their life on their own without even asking us?" Yes, this is the problem our previous generation doesn't understand.
A simple thing boys don't tend to understand is the gravity of the decision a girl takes when she leaves behind her entire life and comes to stay with his family. Homesickness is a feeling a women is not allowed to live. There is another situation in the movie where the girl asks her husband to talk with his father. She tells exactly when to initiate and also predicts 100% what his father will have to say about her, how he will react etc etc. When the drill happens between father-son, the conversation goes exactly the way she had predicted. Again the father tries to say that she trained you and sent here. All this was already disappointing but I was genuinely shocked to the core in one line. The FIL starts crying after two pegs down and starts telling his son how she has taken away his son and then his grand son too and continues to sob. The son (as told to him by his wife) just agrees and gives his father assurance that whatever happens he will always be there at his side. All of a sudden (just like his wife had predicted) his father stops crying and shakes hand with his son. He tells him, "This is good, we need to be together as a team. We will also take our grand son in our team too. At the end of the day only we are the family, and she is just a joint to our family." And yet the movie tells us we have to sympathise the father and not the women.
The biggest lie of this planet is when a boy says he fears his wife. The odds of it happening is only 1 in 1000 cases or even more. The reality is completely opposite. And the film too uses this lie to support the father's views. There is a line where the father says, "It's fake when they say this is a male-dominated society. First 25 years we have to listen to our mother, next 25 years we listen to our wife and in the sunset years we obey the daughter in law." I mean does it even make any sense? We use women as objects, literally as display pieces. Their emotions, their opinions are suppressed daily. All good things in the boy are credited to their parents and the negativity is diverted towards the women. As if she is some sort of witch who has come down in this world with the sole intention of her life to destroy the man's family.
To be fair, there is one point of loneliness which I agree. The cop investigating the accident which happens to the FIL says, "If wife is upset you are still there for each other. In the night when you cuddle, the anger recedes. But are you there for your father? He will keep crying in the corner. No talks for days or may be weeks with him. Rarely there is any physical touch too.
I agree there are problems on both sides. Some in laws actually turnout to be so good that the girl herself accepts them as their own. And in some cases the girl takes advantage of this and creates havoc in the family to her advantage. But the pendulum is not balanced. Sufferings are tilted towards the girl sides more than the other party. What we first need to understand is the girl is leaving her birth parents, her house, her daily schedule, her life and moving ahead. And in this new house there are only in laws. Whether she will become part of the family or like said in the movie will only remain a joint is a different question which only time can answer. Until then what happens is the original girls family move on by accepting it and here if there is no one for her then she becomes lonely in the end.
There is no hope that change will occur. Atleast not in our lifetimes. But even if boys start understanding the pain a girl feels when the shifting time comes may be then there will be change in people's perceptions about girls.
-SR.
