FEMINISM FROM THE MATRILINEAL LAND

The idea of the self-sacrificing, nobly suffering woman has been an inherent part of Indian cinema for nearly a century. Jeo Baby is the latest filmmaker to join the honourable list of men questioning this compliance in his marvellous The Great Indian Kitchen

-  Maithili Rao

Six months is a long time for a film on the net. There is always the rush of new films, series — in so many languages — clamouring to be seen that a film like The Great Indian Kitchen can be expected to be forgotten. Word of mouth and heated discussion among friends has kept this significant film alive. It set off a very relevant conversation. It adds to the cache of feminist films in India that speak to us and for us. There is a difference between a feminist film, and a woman-centric film.

We are all only too familiar with the weepies glorifying the woman as a victim who stoically bears all the miseries and injustice heaped on her, for the sake of her loved ones. We thought that stereotype is dead and gone, but it survives, mutating like this wretched virus.

The stereotype is still entrenched in many layers of Indian society despite flaunting our modernity. It surfaces in cunning and subtle ways even when a narrative is espousing a feminist cause. Most men are tone-deaf or pretend to be so when the conversation gets uncomfortably close to home.

The Great Indian Kitchen screams at the tone-deaf to wake up and hear the truth. This inherited deafness penetrates through class and education. Not just men who take their privilege for granted, but also women can't shed centuries of socialisation and psychological conditioning: submission to injustice in the interest of family, and its status is an ordained duty. Log kya kahenge is a fear that conditions most of us.