Delhi:Â The oppressive rules of Indian society that dictate what a woman wears, where she goes, who she meets and marries and what she does with her life and sexual desires, are rarely challenged by Bollywood movies.
Increasingly, though, a new generation of independent film makers are beginning to tell stories around strong, independent women. The only problem is the censor doesn't like it.
A new film, Lipstick Under My Burkhaâ directed by Alankrita Shrivastava, has finally been released after a five-month delay caused by the Central Board of Film Certification's refusal to give it a certificate. It has won critical acclaim and, on its opening on Friday, praise from film goers.
Phulkit Kattar, a 20-year-old freelance engineer, said he liked it for tackling the taboo subject of female desires, whether for careers, a husband of their choice, or sex.
"I don't know why the board had problems with it or why Indian society has a problem with women being free to live the life they want," he said.
Describing the controversy around the film as "the result of Indian hypocrisy", engineering student Akansha Agnihotri, 21, said she liked the movie which will open the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne in August.
"I liked the film and the courage of the director because it showed the reality of women's lives and it's very different from the usual Bollywood movie,"Â she said.
When the members of the board first saw the film in February, they were offended and denied it a certificate. The reason, in their words: "The story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life. There are contagious sexual scenes, abusive words, audio pornography âĤ"
Shrivastava was outraged at the board's double standards. Bollywood films showing rape scenes, violence against women, some female nudity, and overtly sexual dances are routinely certified by but a film showing small-town women trying to subvert the oppressive rules that society has imposed on their behaviour was deemed too risque. Moreover, the film had won awards at numerous film festivals.
"It's a feminist film with a strong female voice which challenges patriarchy. I think that's why they don't want to certify it. As a filmmaker, I stand by the story and will fight for it till the end," she told the Indian media.
She appealed against the decision. In April, the film was given permission for a national release and it was released on Friday.
It is a fresh and original look at four ordinary women in Bhopal, central India, craving a little bit of freedom, including the freedom to find sexual fulfillment.
They are suffocated on all sides by society, relatives, and parents and expected to conform to set rules. The women, however, manage, through small acts of courage and defiance, to sneak their desires past this tyrannical control.
Apart from the college student who wears jeans under her burka and loves Miley Cyrus, the second woman, surrounded by members of her large extended family, has to pause to remember her name sometimes because it is so long since anyone called her anything but Aunty. She is a grey-haired widow who reads erotic novels and summons up the courage to take swimming lessons.
The third woman is a wife and mother whose husband works in Saudi Arabia. He comes home only a few times a year and treats her like an object in bed. The fourth character is about to be married to a man who wants her to live with his family. Unknown to him, she has boyfriend. When he finds out, she is shamed by his family but she uses it to make a bid for freedom.
For 25-year-old interior designer Kajal Gupta, the most overtly feminist film to come out in India for a while was merely true to the lives of millions of Indian women â and true to her own experience.
"The scene where the young college student dances on her own in her room, with the song playing inside her head, with total abandon and joy, reminded me of my childhood. The simple desire to dance isn't allowed to so many of us. Like her, I used to dance secretly, in my bathroom,"Â said Gupta.
The ruckus over the film's certificate has highlighted yet again thearbitrary decisions taken by the Censor Board in the past couple of years. Many films have been sent back to directors for absurd cuts.
The Board's head, Pahlaj Nihalani, has become a laughing stock over his objections, ranging from rejecting a scene because it featured five bikini-clad girls and wanting rather commonly used swear words to be deleted, to asking for a visual of a bra being washed by a woman to be blurred.
Earlier in the week, Shrivastava told reporters the release was a victory for Indian women.
"If it had not released, that would have set a precedent that it's okay to gag 50 per cent of the population."
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