NOVEMBER 2007 E-Magazine - Pravasi Today

insists on honesty and that the family
reintegrate badki.
Like laaga chunri me daag,
Paakezah, Aaina, Umrao jaan, Julie,
Chameli, Chandni baar are the
product of virtual domination of male
directors who have repeatedly tried to
represent the oldest trade of this
country' prostitution' . They all have
tried their level best to portray the
dreaded life and the unmasked vulgar
face behind the glamour. Moreover it
is just an obvious formula for winning
national awards like umrao jaan,
Chandni baar and Mausam.
Pradeep sarkar seems to have lost
track from direction to activism. His
cinema antics here has just tried to
glorify use of Hindu symbols like
Hanuman chaleesa, banars ghaats and
gangajal. And mind blowing
promotion campaign coupled with
kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi was
more than enough to promote the
stifled and suffocated thought of
women empowerment to Indian
household (Pradeep Sarkar's
advertising background helps him
here in the right product placement).
Along with K series soaps this film
will do wonders in reinforcing the
moral dogma of a woman. Selling the
concept of puritans to Indian families
who are bothered every night at 10.00
turns into another story of a woman
finding ultimate happiness only in
meeting an ideal man. It is uncanny
how a salute to womanhood ends in
men being the goal of their lives. Not
to mention that men are shown as a
breed who crave sex. So desperate are
they that they pay huge sums to have
sex with the most remorseful,
uninterested women.
The only two things which I
could discover as common in Pradeep
Sarkar's Parineeta and Laaga chunri
"You risk flogging a dead horse in saying that
feudalism is stupid and wrong. But you also feel
for the characters in those films. They're
pathetic, like dinosaurs who don't realize
why they're being wiped out. There's a
quality of pathos in that which interests
me” said Satyajit Ray while justifying
the crisis and pathos depiction
in his cinema.
pm in front of their TV sets to see
Tulsi's struggle to justify the taints on
her 'daaman' proving her purity for
last seven years. Daily! The question
is that how long will we sell the Indian
ness? What could have been a
celebration of the spirit of a woman,
LIFESTYLE
me daag: One, both the films start
with strongly accented colloquial
songs and the second, both the films
end with a premature ejaculation of
conflicts.
After watching the much
anticipated Pradeep Sarkar movie on
a lazy Sunday afternoon, these were
the true feeling which came from me
while coming out of the theatre:
Laaga Sunday me daaag!. ■
(Mallika is a Media
Professional and a freelance writer)
November 2007 ✦ Pravasi Today
63