Burkha fine, problem’s the lipstick

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Priyanka Singh

Lipstick, red. The colour of desire. Audacious. Bold. The foil: the burkha.

Parched, and now Lipstick Under My Burkha. Both have at the centre a woman’s sexuality, her desires, and dreams — to be more than her caricature —self. What sort of a woman would she be if the control slackened? If she could express herself freely, like a man? Wouldn’t she be more real?

What is it about The Lipstick that is so alarming? ‘Audio porn’, ‘puts fantasy above life’, explains the Censor Board. Even an ‘A’ certificate won’t do for this evil fantasy fare, that too ‘lady oriented’.

Admittedly, the answers would vary, depending on the age bracket, what stage of life we are in, the role we are currently essaying — mother to a little girl, mother to a teenaged daughter, married woman, daughter to an ageing mother. Or simply the gender.

Our relationships are unrealistically subliminal. There’s a halo around our women. They are asexual beings — too ‘pure’ to have desires. Desire resides where morals do not.

So, when a hoary widow, Buaji — a mother-figure next door — lives out her fantasy on the phone, posing as the sultry Rosy, talking dirty to a young swimming coach, we are squeamish. Why should she want to rediscover her sexuality? Why not with an older man, if at all?

A nubile beautician has a quickie with her ex on the night of her betrothal, as her fiancé awaits her. We cluck in disapproval. A streetwalker, we decide.

A college-goer, dreaming of being a pop singer, nicks a lipstick and discards her burkha to reveal a modern girl on the campus. We squirm: what if our girl did that? Or, we may want her to experience freedom.

An oppressed housewife — a body to her husband having an affair on the sly — forbidden to work, steps out to be a saleswoman. We understand. A victim of circumstances.

The women, exposed and shamed, go into a huddle, smoke a fag, laugh out loud. We smile.

What is so frightening about four small-town women trying to rearrange the social grid to make their life better, or simply live out their dream?

The challenge to the role carved out for a woman, by a woman (writer-director Alankrita Shrivastava) unnerves us such that it must be put away, out of sight. A monstrous idea is highly combustible. It grows wings, and roots.

The Censor Board will put it out for us; it is detrimental to the ‘morality of the audience’.

Judging is easy. Seated on a cushioned recliner, in the comfort of an air-conditioned hall, untouched by the lives we snigger at, we hand out judgments. We could take up for the women, or argue about their ways, and condemn their choices. We know what to carry with us, what to cast aside.

Why deprive an adult movie-goer the joy of celebrating an idea, or rejecting it? Let a daring story be told. We wish to be our Censor Board.