In 1984, during the Soviet–Afghan War, American photojournalist Steve McCurry took the head-covered picture of a hazel-eyed Afghan refugee near Peshawar, which appeared on the cover of National Geographic.
The girl was lost to time.
No one knew her or her whereabouts.
She resurfaced after being identified as Sharbat Gula in 2002.
Most of us might have rejoiced at the rediscovery.
The allure of the laapataa girl.
Kiran Rao created another mystery and allure of not one but two laapataa girls, not lost to time, but lost to identity — who are we as women?
The journey from Pateela to Surajmukhi where the brides gets swapped might seem like a goofy tale of comic mix-up, yet, it is hard-hitting about what is being lost on women.
Are you just physically lost?
Or, are you socially lost in the innumerable societal contraptions that imprison you in propriety and traditions.
In one scene, the first of the lost brides, Phool Kumari, who takes shelter under Manju Mai, a railway station tea-seller is inquired: “How did your parents bring you up?”
To which Phool gets miffed and responds: “They brought me up very well. I know cooking, sewing, cleaning and all household works.”
“Accha, but they didn’t teach you how to find your in-laws house or return to your own house when you get lost. What kind of upbringing is that?”
How incisive!
Even in this age, girls are systematically educated, employed, could seamlessly travel the world, yet, are we trained to deal with the practicalities of life. Do we learn the ‘jugaad’ of life? Do we learn the street-smartness to thrive everyday challenges?
The second of the girls, Jaya, yearns to move out of her provincial village prospecting higher education for herself. She is forcefully married off to a rogue.
Yet, she’s shrewd and willful to escape from her ordained fate.
Two brides. Two entwined challenges.
An unforeseen swap at a railway station.
Oh, c’mon, Saby, we are all living majestically in our cozy homes in our urban lifestyles and who cares about these underfooted women and their challenges.
Should we?
Because Kiran Rao isn’t narrating a literal story.
The movie is a metaphor about the unmindfulness of losing oneself, like Phool, never knowing what it is to be you, since childhood, as the helmed qualities considered as virtues make us only naive and fragile and not prepared for adulthood and its attendant challenges.
The movie is a metaphor about the fear of losing oneself, like Jaya, as the things privileged women take for granted like education, employment, autonomy are so hard-won and insurmountable for many out there. Cherish and be grateful that you have it in life.
The movie is an optimistic metaphor that one day like Sharbat Gula, and Phool, and Jaya, we will all recover from the insidious ‘laapataa’ disorientation imposed on us and emerge assertive and reinvented.
Laapataa Ladies is not a loud rumble but a soft rustle of the collective movement of womenhood, let’s taste what it means to be free from societal expectations and find it about ourselves.
