All shades of pink

Pink is not only a commercial mega-hit, but is also the most-discussed film among all mainstream Indian releases this year. It is a powerful film in every sense as it raises significant questions on why changing values in urban India in an age of modernisation, economic liberalisation and globalisation, should continue to question and judge and define lifestyles of women and associate them directly with the morals they live by.

The gender divide remains, never mind whether the woman is educated, modern, liberated, economically independent or whether she is unlettered, dependent, oppressed, marginalised and rural. Sixty-nine years after Independence, the women in Pink are forced to position themselves as victims in a court of law, a public domain where both the defence lawyer and the prosecution attorney ‘molest’ them all over again after they have been ostracised already by their neighbours, society, the police, and everyone concerned.

Pink is the story of three young working women living together in Delhi and how they fall victim again and again, all because one of the girls, Meenal Arora, repeatedly says “No’ to the physical advances made to her by a young, London School of Economics graduate, Rajveer. When he continues to touch her, she hits him with an empty bottle in self-defence and the three girls flee in a cab. The next ‘mistake’ she makes is to file a FIR (First Information Report) with the local police station. Her friends back her up and support her when she is arrested, though she is the one who filed the complaint. Meenal is charged with causing grievous injury not amounting to murder, and all three are charged with soliciting, extortion and prostitution. “Raped” and “molested” all over again in the courtroom by both the prosecution lawyer and the defence attorney, they insist that their “no”, means “no” and must be accepted as an unequivocal “No.”

Colour us pink
Why should such a significant film be titled Pink which is associated with everything that is feminine, delicate, fragile and girlish? Would it not be asserting the stereotype that goes completely against a film that is defying the stereotype? Director Aniruddha Roy Choudhury says, “Pink is an attractive colour that suggests beauty and youth. But through my film, it also suggests power, freedom, sympathy and strength. It is not the frilly colour that is often understood to be fragile and delicate. I think this has come across in the film.”

Taapsi Pannu, who plays Meenal Arora, the central character among the three girls, says, “Till I heard the script of the film and my role in it, for me, pink meant what it meant to everyone else. It has been a colour associated with girls in pink ribbons playing with Barbie dolls, a soft, feminine colour that denotes softness, gentleness and grace. This film has changed all our notions about this colour completely and radically, almost turning it on its head, so to speak. For me and for the rest of the Pink team, including the boys who play the bad cards in the pack, it now stands for courage, power, strength and so on, for girls and women and take note, also for men.”

When asked how she prepared herself to play such a difficult and controversial role, Taapsi who is a much-in-demand star in the South, but hails from Delhi, says, “A precondition both Aniruddha and Shoojit Sirkar had placed was that I had to actually “be” that character and then alone would I be able to emote it realistically on screen. It was difficult really because I had to prep myself every single day before the shoot which was not only stressful, but emotionally disturbing. Then, I thought to myself, ‘What the hell, I am a Delhi girl and I know that there is probably not a single girl in Delhi who has not been touched inappropriately or felt or groped while travelling in DTC buses or other modes of public transport.’ The work was so stressful that after the shooting was over, I took a holiday for a week”.

Chayanika Hazra writes: “Pink shows that even after 69 years of independence, the mentality of men has not changed. Some men still consider an educated, liberated and independent woman “available’ and “easy.” Each girl has a Meenal, a Falak and an Andrea inside her. When a woman says ‘No’ it means NO. Period”.

All said and done, while many may not agree with the clichéd title of the film, the fact remains that it has turned out to become one of the biggest box office grosser of the year, and at least in terms of luck, it has left many ` 100-crore films behind. Whether one likes the title or not, doesn’t really matter, does it?

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