If you see a drunk woman, don't call her a whore
In my 19th year, on a trip to Shantiniketan for the famed Dol Utsav, I got dead drunk with a bunch of friends, polishing off almost eight pegs of vodka. Neat. I was a woman in love. Wronged. My first boyfriend, a serial womaniser had just slept with another woman - a married woman - a secret that was just out of the bag. We fought. I cried. He pushed me hard on the ground, about to strangle me. I was hurt. My head spinning, suppressing a gnawing urge to throw up, I remember reaching out for my friend's cellphone. He was the only one in the group with one back in the time. Barely able to keep my eyes open I frantically dialed my boyfriend's landline.
It was 3am.
After the third attempt, someone picked up. It was a male voice. I let loose. Abusing, crying, calling him names, accusing him of breaking my heart. Using a load of profanities that a girl from my background would shudder to use. He deserved this, I told myself. Calling back again when the line was disconnected. Saying more.
At some point, I must have passed out.
Next week, when classes resumed, all around me there was a deathly silence. "You shouldn't have behaved like that, so wayward," my best friend whispered as we fought awkward stares everywhere - in the corridor, in the hall, in the classroom. "At least you should have confirmed who you were speaking to… I mean couldn't you make out it was his father? You know what the boys are saying. That you are a psycho! They are shocked you drink so much. Class topper! Now no one will believe he cheated…" the rest of her words trailed.
A sort of stifling judgment I still recall. The way I apologised to my boyfriend a week or so later, in a sense, letting him off the hook. Taking on some of the leftover guilt… a woman with control issues. Not realising then that I was to become another statistic for our sex. The most common sexual stereotype. A woman who drinks herself crazy when she's nursing a broken heart. A jilted lover whose only measure of betrayal is slurred speech and reddened eyes…a desperate, tragic figure…
The way we have immortalised yesteryear actress Meena Kumari who after divorcing her husband Kamal Amrohi in 1964 grew even more addicted to alcohol, relying on doomed flings with younger stars, like Dharmendra and writer-lyricist Gulzar, going on to star in his 1971 directorial debut Mere Apne. One of her best-known roles still considered as Chhoti Bahu, the alcoholic wife in the 1962 Guru Dutt produced Sahib, Bibi Aur Ghulam. The scene where Chhoti Bahu adorns herself painstakingly, dying to be noticed by her husband, croooning "Piya Aiso Jiya Main" standing out as one of Indian cinema's most poignant reflections of a woman's untouched sexual and emotional desires. The way she pleads with her man to spend just one night, before blaming him for her moral depravation, later.
Ironic. Iconic.
The way we have never held Dharmendra or Gulzar or Amrohi guilty?
What is it about dependence on alcohol that instantly boxes a woman - on screen, as in real life? Either standing for a so-called, new-age liberation or an old world idea of all that is lost? Why we tend to read between the lines when a woman is seen with a bottle in her hand? The subtext behind a female getting sloshed.
Take the recent blockbuster, Tanu Weds Manu Returns - Kangana Ranaut as Tanu, now having graduated from cheap local brews in her native Kanpur to sophisticatedly polishing off red wine and beer in London. Her sexless, banal marriage to Mr. Right, being superficially portrayed through her over dependence on liquor. The way she's branded a "bewri" by her husband in front of a roomful of strangers. The same way she doesn't need his permission to hit the bottle.
Is that the way we view women's liberation in Bollywood now?
The reason for spoiling an innocent girl. Much like having sex is still seen. Both Priyanka Chopra and Ranaut in Fashion, whose downhill descent from pure, small town, aspirational models is portrayed through a blurred saga of smoke, booze and drugs. Chopra's awareness moment in the film coming after a night of debauchery, when she has a lustful romp with an African American man and is shocked at how low she's sunk - all the drugs and the traffic signals she's broken, the abortion she willingly had to salvage her high flying career all coming back at one go, the way she now wants to run back to daddy in Chandigarh.
Recklessness. Rage. Regret.
The good girl turned bad.
Just last night, a message from a man I have never met/know of, popped up on my Facebook.
"Why are all so-called feminists now conveniently silent about the hit-and-run case of Reliance VP, Janhavi Gadkar, unlike Bhai's case. Why is no one abusing this alcoholic woman who murdered innocent people? Is it because she is very rich? Belongs to a particular social strata belonging to south Mumbai? Driving a fancy, foreign car like Audi? Working for a top corporate like Reliance? Well educated? Hot? A woman? She should be hung. No wonder she got divorced! Bloody reckless bitch! Whore... "
To be honest, I am not sure if the last comment was intended for me, or Janhavi. Or whether the man mailing me was another fanatical Bhai bhakt with an axe to still grind after the whole Salman Khan fiasco online a month ago. Or was Janhavi just one more instance of a "fallen woman" whose only redemption lay in public shaming and calling her names. Having consumed six pegs of whisky, the alcohol tested in her blood was 200mg, much above the legal limit of blood alcohol content (BAC) or blood alcohol concentration which rests at 0.03 per cent, so while there's clearly no question that Janhavi has violated the law, did her negligence necessarily make her a "whore"?
Why do we even use this term so loosely when it comes to marking a woman? Are whores not women? What justifies these assumptions and attacking her personal life? Is the perception that a single woman/divorcee is a "reckless", individual, automatically not putting her character on the line? Why can't a woman err, the way Salman did?
Why can't we expect the same legal punishment handed out to a woman as her male counterpart sans these narrow gender biases? Why must every crime a woman commits, consciously or unconsciously crucify her sex, in the end? Why should a woman be apologetic about her social status, professional achievements and the material luxuries she can afford or has rightfully earned?
Has all the male bashing that we equate feminism with sadly today, led to this - slut shaming? Is this the real war we are facing?
Man versus Woman?
What must a woman have to do for acceptance by a man? Behave like Devdas. The way Ranaut as Tanu in the film's second half gets dead drunk as a sign of repentance perhaps. Asking for forgiveness in a wig to resemble the woman now starring in her estranged beau's life. Why after guzzling down vilayati, did she have to to scrub dishes and carry water buckets? To prove she's essentially a good-hearted person. The sati-savitri, pati-vratapeyakkar!
Why the headlines about Janhavi barely 12 hours ago screamed - Janhavi spends day in custody "crying". What if we wanted to exist outside the quotation marks? What if we want justice that is gender neutral? That punishes us legally, not lewdly? That doesn't point a finger at our morality all the time…
What if Kangana Ranaut could be crowned the latest female icon in Bollywood sans her constant portrayal of the woman on the edge with loose morals? Minus Revolver Rani or Tanu, a drunkard, foul-mouthed, abusive, caricature of our leading men?
Why by the actress' own admission at a recent event, "After Fashion, I couldn't do The Dirty Picture. "
Why…