VEERE DI WEDDING

WHEN DID THE SATI SAVITRIS OF INDIA BECOME VEERE DI VIXENS? SANGEETA WADDHWANI DARES TO ASK THE FORBIDDEN QUESTION…

Worlds apart from the wedding sagas of yore…the HUM AAPKE HAI KAUNS…HUM SAATH SAATH HAIN…VDW is a desi Sex and the City, filled with urban feminist rants, some credible funny and oops moments (like one of the ‘Veere’ girls getting a divorce because her husband walks in on her, flowers in hand, to find her cheating on him with a vibrator! See what I mean?

Yes not sure how the movie didn’t get mired in censorship debates about shattering illusions. Illusions that we love to have about ‘pure and vestal brides’ from the Balika Badu days to the Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (remember Aishwarya’s demure romance with her house guest Salman? Which triggered a real-life two year live in relationship?)

Screen stories have always idealised love till this decade….but then it all fell to pieces when reality became so wonderfully muddy. Yes we had women of Rekha’s calibre being a harried housewife who sleeps with a married man in Aastha – but feels compelled to bolster her spending power for the sake of her child. The ‘paid for’ intimacy fills her with a sense of guilt and violation.

Our women in VDW…are happiest feeling no filial obligation and just being lovers (Kalindi or Kareena’s character)…another, an accomplished lawyer, sometimes finds herself waking up naked beside a stranger after a drunken decadent night…(Sonam’s character) ..And she doesn’t even want to give him her phone number! And so on.

How much of India’s reality will relate to this? Is it good to unleash a chick flick like this on those virile Bihari rapists and senior citizens who are allegedly losing the plot, raping an eight year old girl? I honestly don’t know.

I remember asking an Uber cab driver in Delhi about his views on the Nirbhaya incident. I was shocked to hear him say, ‘Uske saath ek boyfriend tha. Aisi ladki ko character naheen hai.” Hmmmm…I was dying to ask him if all the cheating married men around India can boast of character or if promiscuous gay men were asking to be raped. But being alone, and single, I chose to be silent. So this is such a reality check: his logic was, a girl with a boyfriend has no character!”

The second question begging to be asked is, how relateable were the Veere women to our urban women? I was watching a trial show filled with sophisticated South Mumbai ladies…And they were clearly having a blast! In fact, they most liked the straight-talking divorcee-to-be who was caught with her vibrator. And how she punctured all the murky gossip around her by speaking the truth to the hypocritical gossipy society women…alerting the same women to their own children’s addictions to cocaine and flings. Publicly!

Am imagining this film’s impact on fans of Bollywood around the world. Fans of Bollywood in conservative Canada, the US, HK, Pakistan. Amish Tripathi, the popular author of mythical tales retold through a modern feminist filter, once pointed out to me that pop culture in the West was leaning towards more spiritual concerns, and ecological concerns, while pop culture here was more about aspirational lifestyles…and imitating the West.

One can see that, in all the flash-your-cash scenarios…be it the fancy car in which Sonam’s one-night-stand boyfriend seeks to drop her home, or Kalindi’s in-laws facing police enquiries for over-spending at their son’s wedding.

If one had to conclude this review, the silver lining seems to be that our Veere girls DID show character. They were not gold-diggers. One ran away from her rich daddy to marry an American. Kalindi had chosen to leave her father (who always fought with her mother…a mother who passes away young)… and be self sufficient living in Australia. Kalindi has a public spat with her fiance when he places a diamond bigger than his original proposal ring on her finger. (His mother requests for the original ring to be returned and goes for a bigger one). And Sonam, a super successful divorce lawyer, dumps an arranged match when he can’t handle her making a move on him on the dance floor. “I want a wife, not a whore!” ..is his 18th century retort to her attempt to kiss him. See how confused we are?

We do live in interesting times!

Would love to hear comments from followers on this film!