The Dirty Picture

Six months ago during the Delhi rape case, an article was published in Hindu about the role of Hindi movies in men's attitude. It was a pretty good article that talked about how Hindi movies and songs emphasize "Inkaar mein hi ikraar hota hai" attitude and other things like that. I remember watching this movie called "Aa gale lag ja" that had Shashi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore in it. From the beginning of the movie Shashi Kapoor keeps trying to woo Sharmila Tagore and keeps running into her wherever she goes. While she vehemently denies any interest in him and even insults him, he relentlessly follows her and tries to woo her. One fine day he is lucky and she gets lost somewhere in a forest with no way to get out. And guess what?? He is there by her side. She falls in the snow, gets really cold and falls sick. She has high fever and becomes unconscious so he takes her into a small cottage that he finds. This is where this movie gets really (more) crappy. So to save her life he gives her "body heat" (LOL raise to infinity!!! You should listen to the dialogues!). And then she ends up pregnant and the movie goes on for another 2 hours. OK!!! So getting an unconscious girl pregnant is definitely rape. How on earth can you make a love story out of it???? But Hindi movie directors don't think there's anything wrong with it. So....my point is that I agree with the Hindu article. The problem that I had was slightly different.

In the article, the author said that the movie "The Dirty Picture" was a C grade movie that became a B grade movie only because Vidya Balan agreed to act in it. The author's point was that Vidya Balan's reputation as an "actor" as opposed to just a "star" gave credibility to this vulgar movie. While I cringed over and over again while watching that movie, I could not forget even for a moment that this movie was based on someone's life. And I found that more disturbing than the movie itself (or even a couple of Silk Smitha scenes and songs that I have seen). How can you have a problem with this movie and not have a problem with the fact that someone lived this life? You have a huge problem with the way this woman dressed (or undressed) on the screen, but you have no problem with how she was treated? The fact that poverty and illiteracy played a big role in how a woman's life was lived and ended and the fact that she was exploited by many people does not bother the moral police in our country. When it comes to this big talk about our culture and values, we are missing the important points here.