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In Sudakshinar Saree directed by Sudeshna Roy Abhijit Guha a housewife turns her love for sarees into a thriving empowering business.
Every individual (read woman) possesses certain latent potential/s. However, owing to the daily grind of domestic/married life, these remain dormant or surface rarely. In this context, the subtly feminist Bangala film Sudakshinar Saree is an eye-opener.
Sudakshina played by Srilekha Mitra, a 40-something college graduate-turned-homemaker, resides with her parents-in-law, spouse and son in a middle-class neighbourhood in north Kolkata. She has a fetish for sarees. Although she is ridiculed and scolded for her ‘odd’ passion, she takes it sportingly and continues her acquisition spree.
Her mother-in-law played by Alaknanda Roy, though overtly decent and sympathetic, is hell-bent to de-addict the junior from her ‘weird’ passion. She compels her bahu to cook new homely recipes every other day to take her mind off sarees.
Isn’t it rather unfair considering that Sudakshina handles the bulk of the household chores? Only the father-in-law, the husband and a niece understand and tacitly support her. Her life continues in a hunk-dory manner until one day when she bumps into an old classmate of hers Prateek played by Badshah Moitra.
As the duo journey down memory lane, we discover how she used to be a cigarette-smoking, political activist, a gold medallist and a budding writer who abandoned everything to enter matrimony at the behest of her parents.
Fortunately, the husband has no qualms about his wife’s hanging around with her college buddy, Prateek. As a truly faithful friend, Prateek rekindles her ambition and creativity. Greatly motivated, Sudakshina delves into the history and antiquity of the saree.
In the process, she stumbles upon weavers, artisans and craftsmen, wallowing in poverty and squalor. To help them, she hits upon the idea of setting up a boutique for advertising, marketing and selling their handiwork at prices they richly deserve. Her writing skills become a handy tool for creating ads. In no time, her brand of sarees becomes hugely popular. Even the cynical mother cannot help admiring her.
The moral of the story is: the in-laws had better hone and harness the skills and qualities of the ‘bahu’ brigade. The outcome is bound to benefit the entire clan.
Sudakshinar Saree is currently streaming on Zee5.
Image source: Still from trailer of Sudakshinar Saree, edited on CanvaPro.
Am a trained and experienced features writer with 30 plus years of experience .My favourite subjects are women's issues, food travel, art,culture ,literature et all.Am a true feminist at heart. An iconoclast read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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