Laapata Ladies Nudges Us To Think Beyond The Binary Of Veiling Equals Erasure

In the sea of sensory overload through streaming platforms, alluring the audience to cinema has become increasingly difficult and highly tactical. Against the cinematic experience of big-budget movies, dripping in crafty opulence and hyper-nationalist jingoism, Kiran Rao’s directorial second, Laapata Ladies managed to pull a crowd for reasons beyond the superficial.

Studded with a “fresh face” ensemble which hits all the right notes, the movie retells an overdone message - “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” albeit with a non-preachy plot. What worked for me and works in favour of the movie as well is that there is no saviour, breaking the fourth wall and delivering a heart-pulling monologue only to be forgotten as soon as the credits roll. The film respects its audience enough to not dumb down everything to be enunciated with overflowing drama which often becomes more frivolous than serious.

Set in the fictitious town of ‘Nirmal Pradesh’ somewhere in Northern India, the story of lost brides created curiosity even with the movie’s quirky trailer. Yet, beneath its whimsical façade lies a poignant commentary, serving a bitter pill of truth camouflaged within the rustic simplicity of village life. Even though the story is unfolding in pre-internet rural India, the satirical commentary squarely applies to the current socio-political environment without any extrapolation. Cleverly using the trope of a ghoonghat, Rao deftly exposes the futility of archaic customs like not taking your husband’s name under any circumstances, interweaving humour with the budding romance of newlyweds.

The story of what it means to be a woman in India has been told multiple times before. Yet, as Manju Mai (Kadam’s Character) reminds us of the ‘fraud’ of patriarchy keeps women bound to their traditional roles and the society continues to see the value of a woman only as long as she is chaste and obedient. We have grown up with this narrative, trained in the expectation of modesty and family-honour. Then why the retelling? Because women telling women’s stories (a phrase I borrow from Sucharita Tyagi who dances to this phrase if that is the case) bring out a nuance in the agency of women that men’s jack-hamming but well-intentioned feminist movies don’t.

In Laapata Ladies too, we are met with ‘nirmal’ (soft) characters with complex emotions and simple desires. The scene that resonated most profoundly with me depicts the four women of the protagonist’s house gathered in what can only be described as a sanctuary within their domestic confines, revelling in a fleeting moment of liberation from servitude. Here, amidst shared laughter and camaraderie, they momentarily transcend the oppressive shackles of patriarchal expectations, negotiating avenues of solidarity in defiance of societal odds. Nicely summed up when Yashoda (Agrawal’s character) cheekily asks her mother in-law, “Amma ji, agar hum aur tum dost hote toh?” (what if you and I were friends) and the mother-in-law smilingly responds “try karke dekhte hain!” (let us try now). However, the film is more than this camaraderie of women connected under the same web of dutiful submission.

The symbolism of the vermilion-hued veil, or ghoonghat, permeates the narrative, burdened with the weighty task of controlling women's autonomy, desires, and identities under the guise of tradition and honour. Through incisively penned dialogues and situational humour, like “ab tumhe aage nahi neeche dekh kar chalna hai” (now you have to walk with your head down) and “naya pati, naya suit, naya joota, ghoonghat ke neeche se kaise pehchaante” (new husband, new suit, new shoes, how would I have recognised him behind my veil), the film exposes the absurdity of veiling practices, inviting viewers to reflect on the myriad ways in which such customs perpetuate gender oppression. When the hapless Deepak (Srivastav’s Character) naively presents his wife’s veiled photo to the Police Inspector, he is mockingly reminded of how foolish he looks for not having an identifiable photo of his wife, promptly pausing for a laugh and ponder for the viewers!

Covered with this suhaag ki nishaani ghoonghat, we find two women embodying and reflecting different ideas of femininity and identity which later transform into different forms of empowerment. While Phool (Goel’s Character) is raised to be a wife and has not fathomed a life beyond the domestic haven of servitude, Jaya (Ranta’s character) is representative of the woman who values her education more than being married given her age and sensibilities. Laapata Ladies then becomes less about restoring the right bride to the rightful husband and more about finding oneself in the pursuit of finding the other or being found.

The film holds space for both women’s desires to co-exist. One wasn’t presented as morally superior to the other. Phool needed a lesson or two by the curtly worded Manju Mai to be enlightened about the ‘frauds’ of the world and to be jolted into self-belief without painting her as stupid in wanting to be with her husband above all else. On the contrary, Jaya had to make a life-altering decision in a split-second when destiny woke the wrong bride up! But both of them come into their own through the film and in the end are ghoonghat free, setting a tone for a more liberated life.

Through Phool and Jaya, the movie has a reassuring message that empowerment doesn’t need to be one-size-fits all. The film also doesn’t shy away from taking political jibes now and then to drive home a point. The hilarity of Jaya’s village’s name change with the changing government is an astute commentary on the political flakiness of recent times. Yet, during this journey of discovery, we are neatly handed a comment that ‘veil erases identity’. But before the liberal flank takes this phrase to further embolden their mission to liberate Muslim women, or the conservative camp portrays this as a deviation from the ‘real issue’ of the regressive practices of hijab, a few things need to be contextualised.

Ghoonghat is primarily a cultural practice in South Asia mostly followed in North of India. With no explicit backing in Hindu religious texts, it is rooted in the manifestation of hetero-patriarchy to control women and their bodies. Sold for generations, in the name of tradition and customs and concealed as an expression of respect, ghoonghat has been the tool to display honour of caste and class through women’s modesty. Veiling practices in Islam too cannot be completely rinsed clear of cultural impressions of control but have one significant difference. It is also an act of asserting one’s identity rather than erasure. Adopting to cover one’s face and body is a political declaration of public identity and a personal submission to the faith.

Women’s clothing as fibre of their oppression or liberation are all too simplistic an explanation of a layered problem. While many have now come to acknowledge that a woman’s bodily autonomy is not limited to flaunting one’s hair but there are many still hypnotised under the Western feminists’ trope of veil equals erasure.

There are more than one way of envisioning emancipation and empowerment. Religion informs culture and vice-versa but refusing to see the delicate balance between the two without giving sufficient attention to the political, historical and material realities is a naive fallacy. Lastly, to the ardent advocates of ‘choice’, when you presume that all women in hijab are oppressed, let’s take a step back and ask: What if it is her choice?! The pursuit of women’s rights cannot be achieved without recognising and respecting differences. Just like Laapata Ladies allows its protagonists to envision a future of their liking and chasing it, the future of women’s liberation also lies in unlearning the broad strokes of empowerment fed to us by white and upper caste feminism.

Quratulain Mushtaque is development professional based out of Delhi. She has a Masters in Comparative and International Education from the University of Oxford and has interests in gender and education development.