The Great Indian Wife

 I happened to watch the Malayalam movie The Great Indian Kitchen on TV. The movie has been discussed much and in great detail by almost everybody who is a somebody in Kerala. Let me add my little bit too to all that. 

First of all, I endorse the cause espoused by the movie: women's liberation. Liberation from the kitchen, from man, from religion, from traditions. 

None of these - kitchen, man, religion, traditions - is necessarily bad. On the contrary, all of them could be good and great. But the movie shows an ordinary woman married into a rigidly traditional household where the man is the boss and the wife is a slave. Religion and traditions become useful tools in the hands of the boss to ensure the woman's perpetual slavery. The climax of the movie is a brilliant scene in which the woman's rebellion takes the form of the dirty kitchen water which she hurls on the faces of her husband and father-in-law before walking out of her slavery with bold steps. 

Secondly, I loved the way certain traditions - especially those endorsed by religion - are questioned in the movie. Why is a menstruating woman considered filthy? Why can't women enter certain temples like Sabarimala? Why can't women even express their opinions on such issues freely? The movie raises these questions very powerfully. And they are very pertinent questions too. 

When the Sabarimala controversy broke out some time back in Kerala, I supported the women who fought for their rights to enter the temple. But soon I fell silent because my right to speak on the issue was questioned on the basis of my supposed religious affiliation. One of the saddest things that has happened to India in the past half a decade is this contamination of every argument, every debate, with religion. You are necessarily a Hindu or a Christian or a Muslim. You are not a human being!

Worse, I found most of the women to whom the issue should matter [read Hindu women] were in favour of the traditions which restricted their liberties. I'm speaking about women whom I know personally and with whom I had occasions to discuss the issue. Was it because they were religious? Or was it because their minds have been poisoned by the communalism that has come into vogue in the past half a decade? I'm convinced the latter is the case. My observations lead me to that conclusion. It shocks me to see women who are post-graduates or with higher educational qualifications have terribly narrow understanding of religion as well as politics. 

The worst tragedy that has hit the nation is this circumscription of minds. 

There is a scene in the movie where the man of the house, the male protagonist of the movie (the female protagonist is the real heroine), is touched by his wife in the period of abnegation preceding his Sabarimala pilgrimage. She touches him because he has fallen from his scooter and she has rushed to help him. Her love, her concern, her goodness is what is shattered to smithereens by the indignation of the hidebound husband. And what is the remedy for this defilement by a woman's touch? A ball of cowdung or some cowdung solution in water! There we are - in contemporary India that has been taken back to the savage Vedic times.

The movie ends with the heroine finding her emancipation, earning her dignity, and living a happy independent life. The conclusion also shows that the man has married again and the new wife is treated exactly the same way as the old one but the new one is happy being a slave. That is another tragedy: people don't want liberty; people enjoy their slavery. That happens not just in movies. Look around and you will see a billion examples.