On our way back from Tirupati, we were treated to two Kannada movies. The first one was a recent flick - a remake of the Tamil movie, Kadhal Kottai. The second was an oldie - Rajkumar's Hosabelaku. But this temporal difference did not deter the story writers to stick to one aspect - the one where the diffident, shy, introverted, "oppressed" girl got the guy.
In the first movie, the lady was painfully shy. She fell in love with a person even without meeting the guy. Fine. These things happen, or at least so they tell us. But the worst was how they provided the contrast for her endearing personality - the boss who ran a company and asked for what she wanted. How dare she? How dare she make her preferences known and not hide behind a cloak of the sundar susheel helpless abla naari?? She was protrayed as a nutcase for she failed to understand what was wrong. This exaggerated portrayal of the lady was clearly not necessary. For crying out loud, people do get it when they are said no to. It's just that people don't give enough credit to others and insult their common sense. It didn't matter that they showed this "abla naari" go into a house of a fellow she didn't know as she searched for the love of her life. It did not matter that she went to a house with a stranger, took a shower in his bathroom which had a broken latch. It did not matter she showed all signs of nutcasery (I know it isn't a word, but then again, the premise of the movie was ludicrous as well!). But since she wasn't the one running a company and confident enough to speak up, this was all her desperation to find the guy, not her being mentally unstable!
The second movie had our Mr Rajkumar falling for a relative who was being subjugated to a hard life by her step mother. The abla naari did everything that was asked of her without questioning anything. She was super woman who could take it all. Mr Rajkumar sees all this, heads back to Delhi where he is promoted and is told by his boss that his daughter likes Mr Rajkumar and would like to marry him. Then comes the priceless scene. The first scene of the movie showed him jogging on the streets of Delhi early morning. Now, the screen split in two with one half showcasing the boss's daughter in fancy athletic gear going for a jog and the other half showed his relative washing clothes. So there's the confident one on one side and the bring-on-all-the-pain-I'll-take-it-lying-down-without-complaining one on the other. And guess whom he picks? Of course. The former would need new sweat pants when this one wears out but the latter wouldn't need a washing machine since she would do the washing herself...and of course, she wouldn't ask any questions. Nope. The whole idea being peddled here was how a man had to "rescue" the woman. The first woman did not need "rescuing" and how will the hero become the hero then?
I have never been one for the whole man-woman debate mostly because I've strongly believed in the idea that both sexes have their strengths and strengths. I wouldn't call any trait a weakness because none of them are. It's just a neat division, if I may say so. And it is not generalisable at all. So why do we try so hard? But this whole idea of having to be a certain type to find a man or rather a man to find you marriageable is appalling! To add to it, they're telling you how you need to be and how being one way is completely acceptable - to the point that you're being branded and showcased as a nutter! Be with whomever you want, but you have no right to claim a whole set of women to not make the cut, not worthy of a significant other. That's not the right message to be sending out. And just for that, the endings of neither of the movies were "happy" for me - the outright dismissal of a group of women growing to bethe majority of this half of the species just does not scream "happy" to me!
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