What would we do when we graduate
from X with good grades and getting admitted to a good junior college? Shop?
Party? Have fun? This girl, I met some days ago, more than anything else, raced
around to get her name changed. Why? Because her name, apparently, had become a
way too popular.
It may sound a little too
frivolous. But trust me, if any of you would have met her, you would understand
what I am talking about. If you had seen in her eyes the guilt of bearing a
name that was adjective-zed with something like “chikani” and contained in a
song that vulgarizes one's being, you would understand where I am coming from.
When I asked her why she changed her
name, she informed me, “Bhaiya, I don’t want to spend my first few months of college
in embarrassment.” I felt angry. Imagine if I had to rename myself because some careless a**hole has turned my name into a cheap entertainment! Some people may argue that this girl, and all the girls like her, need to have courage and strength to fight it or to ignore and not to be affected. I ask, fight or ignore is a good idea... but how many times in a day?
I am sure when her parents would
have named her whatever they did, they must have had some very beautiful connotation.
And we – people who create such songs and those of us who have made them so
popular – have brought shame upon the same name. At this realization, I think
of all those girls who may be named a Munni, a Sheela, a Chameli and such. What
creepy humiliation it is when you walk on the street and someone at your back
sings “Sheela ki Jawani” or “Chikani Chameli”!
Men have been objectifying women since
ages. That's pathetic. But what is more crazily insane is women's participation in this process of victimization. This has to stop. And to stop this, it’s not men who will take the
initiative, some may be empathetic though. Rather its women who need to take
the lead. I wonder - why a Shreya Ghosal has to sing Chikani Chameli in first
place? Why a Farah khan has to create space for Sheela ki Jawani in her film?
Why Malaika Arora has to dance on Munni Badnam Huyi? Why these women do not have
courage to say no to such demands? After all they are established and powerful
figures in their respective professions? Aren’t they?
As I understand cinema, the
concept of “script ki demand” is crap. There are hundred other ways to narrate
one's story. One just needs to explore those other ways. And I don’t think it’s
about creative liberty to do what we do in liberty’s name. If that would have
been the case, it would have been interesting to listen to Katrina ki jawani or
Farah badnam huyi. But we don’t. Because in the name of creative liberty we
rarely spill off the shit on ourselves. It’s mostly others.
I respect the courage with which
all the girls with these names are surviving and fighting this humiliation. On
my part, I pledge never to play to any of such songs. I pray that someday our
film industry will grow to be a little more sensitive. I also hope that in one of
the Satyamev Jayate episodes Mr. Amir Khan also talks about the social responsibility
his industry has and is not catering to. Amen!
P.S. – I am a huge Amir fan and I
love his work, including SMJ.
