The plight of women in the South Asian society. Review on Chandni Bar

A few months ago, I saw this movie on Zee Cinema. I must admit that it was the spice in the movie that had gotten me glued at first, but after watching the whole movie, I learnt the important lesson of respecting women as women. More often than not it happens that we respect women as an idea... as South Asians we are too caught up in the idea of the perfect chaste woman ie Ram's Sita, the embodiment of goodness and piety. Sadly women are only respected in our societies as mothers, sisters, and daughters. Even the wife has a lesser status... perhaps it is time we started respecting women as women instead.

In this movie the incredible Tabu plays the role of 'Mumtaz', a village simpleton who is used by her maternal uncle for an income. She earns herself and her uncle a living by dancing at Chandni Bar. As the movie progresses, she is raped by her uncle. Later she is married off to a local thug who is killed by the police in a fake encounter ( a divergent theme, but a sad commentary nevertheless on the extrajudicial killings that are rampant both in India and Pakistan). Later on as Tabu tries to move towards some respectability, she is pushed back deeper into her world because her son has been falsely imprisoned (where he is sodomized by fellow juvenile delinquents). There is just no escape for Tabu from the life that she so desperately wants to escape. She is forced to prostitution in order to get her son freed.

The movie has no conclusion, simply an end... Tabu's son murders the two inmates who had sodomized him, signalling a fresh new struggle for Tabu, which is the theme of her life...

Movies like these need to be made. Exploitation of women is rampant in our societies. They always fall victim to the suffering brought upon them at the whims of the menfolk. Either they are exploited and pimped by relatives or they are the inadvertent pawns in the game plan of politicians and religious leaders. Though Pakistan has a strong and vibrant female activist presence, the conditions in NWFP where the religious alliance has swept into power are pretty bad. One wonders why like all other things religion also begins and ends at women?