Dangal changes conversation on Indian womanhood

The movies influenced changes in dress, a new language, different to the more widespread Bhojpuri that East Indians in Trinidad spoke, and provided a repertoire of new music for East Indian musicians and singers in Trinidad.

For generations of Indians in the Caribbean diaspora, the Hindi film has been a significant source of models pertaining to ideas of Indianness, values, family relationships, notions of Indian masculinity and femininity, and class. Those who have been around long enough may have memories of descriptions like ‘The boy dark like dem Madras people’ or ‘Fair like Bombay Indian’, ideas that were already around but, which were compounded by images of actors and actresses who were of light complexion and fit the ideal of ‘white’ as beautiful. The films essentially established a connection to India, that assisted in expanding and re-shaping an Indian cultural consciousness in Trinidad. In small pockets of Trinidad, there are, up to today, communities which still cling to the idea of India through old Hindi film songs which are regularly aired on East Indian radio stations, the Indian movie, as we popularly call it, cable television and the Internet.

Although there were patriotic movies and those based on stories of Hindu divinities, it is with laughter that many of us speak about the typical Bollywood formula of girl meets boy. ‘Everybody runs around a tree and sings songs’ is a common perception of the Indian movie.

Whether action (most films have the fist-fight at least) like Dhoom or dramas like Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, there is more often than not, romance involved. And music.

One is brought to Hindi films, first through the musical trailers. The storyline seems almost secondary.

But, in between this set formula, there are a few films that add a new dimension to the generally accepted narratives.

There have been few plots in Bollywood cinema that have provided fresh takes on Indian culture and society in modern times. Many alternative stories have come from producers/directors outside India.

Among them Deepa Mehta’s Fire and Water come to mind. Within Indian however, Anurag Kashyap’s films have pushed boundaries.

Among them, That Girl in Yellow Boots (available on youtube) and more recently Gangs of Wasseypur, stand out as alternatives to the usual Bollywood narrative. And now there’s Dangal. Aamir Khan as producer, shines once again with his off-the-beaten-track film that can still be categorized as good family entertainment. (See Khan’s Lagaan and Taare Zameen Par).

Dangal, now showing in cinemas in Trinidad, is a biopic of the Phogat sisters, female wrestlers whose father defied the usual take on Indian womanhood to train his daughters as world class wrestlers.

Geeta Phogat eventually won India’s first ever gold medal for wrestling at the Commonwealth Games, New Delhi in 2010. Her younger sister Babita followed in 2014.

In light of Trinidad’s 2016 child marriage debate, Dangal feels relevant, addressing the very current issue of possibilities, other than marriage and motherhood, available to women. In a scene where the girls attend a friend’s engagement, they are seen complaining about their father’s lack of sympathy and his fierce discipline, wishing such a father on no one. The voice of their friend silences them.

‘At least your father thinks about you. At least he is giving you an opportunity to be something other than a wife. In a world where a girl is simply a burden, where she is trained for household chores and then by age fourteen, she is married off to someone she hasn’t even seen, you have an opportunity to be something other than that. At least you are not invisible to him.’ Set in Haryana where the options for women are limited and where, there is reportedly a high incidence of female infanticide, Mahavir Singh Phogat defied the traditions of his village. He pushes his daughters into a male world where they endure the biases against women, particularly in a sport dominated by men. Yet, they emerge triumphant.

And if film is any inspiration, then Dangal provides an alternative view on Indian womanhood.

In a year that marks the centenary anniversary of the end of indentureship in Trinidad, Dangal seems a fitting film to represent a modern era of change in Indian consciousness. In a diasporic community such as ours, where there are still deep-seated ideals pertaining to Indianness and Indian womanhood, such films provide much-needed inspiration. Made in India, the nation where many Indians in Trinidad have looked to for direction, such films serve as a sanction of sorts, saying to women and men alike, that, non-traditional pursuits and behaviours are ‘perfectly acceptable’.

E d i t o r ’ s Note: Sharda Patasar goes on vacation from today.