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Although today’s woman would agree with the woman of yesterday that consent is non-negotiable, she doesn’t seem keen on movies like DDLJ.
I used to listen to ‘Made in India,’ a song by Alisha Chinai way back in 1997 or so.
I loved the tune, and it seemed great that India finally appeared to have an Indipop presence. An album made in India (pardon the terrible pun) could be good, too. The slightly ‘Westernised’ Indians who grew up on Western pop music were feeling happy about it, and I was one of them. The lyrics went something like:
‘Dekhi hai saari duniya, Japan se leke RussiaAustralia se leke AmericaDekha hai pyaar ka sapna, dil chaahe koi apnaMil jaaye gar ek saathiya, ek desiyaMade in India, made in IndiaEk dil chaahiye that’s made in India’
‘Made in India’ dealt with the message that regardless of how much an Indian travelled, her soul would remain quintessentially Indian. It also said that this well-travelled woman wanted a ‘saathiya’ from India. I recall meeting a young Indian girl who lived in Spain during my Europe tour. She said she wanted a boy from India ‘coz the ones in Spain were all ‘disco boys.’
In the mega-blockbuster hit, DDLJ, which released in 1995, the lead pair Raj and Simran travel in Switzerland as tourists. Let’s look closely at that scene in DDLJ where Raj tells Simran after a drunken night that he knows Simran is an Indian girl for whom ‘izzat’ meant everything and that regardless of what she thought of him, he was a ‘Hindustani.’ He understood what ‘Izzat’ meant to an Indian woman.’Izzat’ here equated to ‘not losing one’s virginity.’
Who really would have been comfortable with anything more than a cuddle in the bedroom while in a state of intoxication, though? Wasn’t the scene about consent, too, rather than just of one’s values? It was not only about the ‘Indianness’ of the woman in question—about staying a virgin until marriage—but also about not being taken advantage of while in a drunken stupor.
It’s 2019, and ‘hook-ups’ seem more casual, especially with the younger generation. Flings are the order of the day. Women( of all ages) have spoken up and said they are not packets of ghee that need to remain unopened or untampered with. There are articles about how a hymen is just a membrane and that it does not symbolise one’s ‘purity’ or ‘sacredness.’ Although today’s woman would agree with the woman of yesterday that consent is non-negotiable, she doesn’t seem keen on movies like DDLJ. The fact that DDLJ finally got cancelled at Maratha Mandir in 2015 almost 20 years after it began playing on 19 October 1995 is telling.
Today’s woman doesn’t want to fit in a mould cast by Bollywood. She wants to shatter stereotypes and write her own rules, which she may choose to break. A small percentage of the female population watches DDLJ every time it airs on TV and still feels it is the quintessential Indian movie. Regardless of how much we’ve changed, in so many ways, we remain the same.
Image is a still from the movie Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge
Aishwariya Laxmi is a writer, editor, blogger, and poet living in suburban Chennai, India. She blogs on https://aishwariyalaxmi.com/ and has a newsletter at https://ash.fambase.com/. Her poems and flash fiction have read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Menopause is a reality in women's lives, so Indian workplaces need to gear up and address women's menopausal needs.
Picture this: A seasoned executive at the peak of her career suddenly grapples with hot flashes and sleep disturbances during important meetings. She also battles mood swings and cognitive changes, affecting her productivity and confidence. Eventually, she resigns from her job.
Fiction? Not really. The scenario above is a reality many women face as they navigate menopause while meeting their work responsibilities.
Menopause is the time when a woman stops menstruating. This natural condition marks the end of a woman’s reproductive years. The transition brings unique physical, emotional, and psychological changes for women.
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