Imagine if PK was a woman, would you still be laughing?

Writing on "ghar wapsi" has now become an existential issue for anybody who has ever wielded a pen. The same goes for PK, another film gloriously treading the multihundred crore path despite its share of controversies. In fact, if one thinks about it, a religious devotee and a regular cinema lover have much in common. While the former creates an "image" of an unseen God as per his or her own notions, the latter also interprets a film in the light of their subjectivity. As a result, in our minds, Jesus is always white and so is James Bond! I have decided, hence, to mention both "ghar wapsi" and PK here, and here comes my contention: PK’s "ghar wapsi" has been heroically facilitated by a woman.

Betrayal

Jaggu is a brave woman whose life is turned upside down by the dogmas of religion. After a predestined betrayal by a Muslim Pakistani boy – who "uses" her body at the first opportunity he gets – she comes back to Delhi from Bruges only to be abandoned by her family. She is brave not because she recovered from the heartbreak and focused on her career. Instead, her courage lies in living alone, traversing the length and breadth of Delhi without getting molested, dealing skillfully with largely misogynistic Delhi Police personnel and still ensuring a safe "ghar wapsi" for herself every evening. Not many women have this luxury either in this city or elsewhere.

The national capital, and by extension the entire country, is grossly biased against half of its population – women. PK’s director Rajkumar Hirani was clever enough to realise that a happy ending can only be achieved with a male alien desperate to go back home. Even in the films, especially the ones made for viewing with family, we still can’t run the risk of depicting a lost woman. If PK were a woman, the story would have unfolded differently. Firstly, there is no way that a fair, tongue-tied woman would have survived roaming naked in the villages and towns without attracting unwanted attention and possible sexual assault.

A little later in the film, PK’s Bhairon Singh "bhaaya"claims to understand his "frustration" and is charitable enough to provide a remedy. Men will be men! So PK is taken to a local brothel with an assortment of women trafficked from different parts of the country. Six hours spent here with a Bhojpuri-speaking sex worker, explains his fluency in the language, and the power it begets him.

Brothel

The human trafficking industry in India is estimated to generate four billion dollars a year and has at its core, investors, unscrupulous recruiters and corrupt public officials as principal participants.

In 2007, the ministry of women and child development reported the presence of over three million female "sex workers" in India, with 35.47 per cent of them entering the trade before the age of 18 years.

Coming back to the film, it is anybody’s guess now in what capacity would the female PK be taken to the same brothel. For reference, look back at Anurag Kashyap’s Leni in Dev D for whom there is no possibility of "ghar wapsi" as she’s destined to be Chanda, the fantasy girl at a Paharganj brothel. In fact, had the female PK survived and actually met a golden hearted "bhaaya," fresh dangers would have awaited her in Delhi. In no circumstances could she have inhabited a spot like Ugrasen’s Baoli at nights. Connaught Place and its neighbouring areas have been mapped to be one of the 100 unsafe places for women in the city. The baoli can be particularly unsafe in the evenings since it is a lesser known historical monument and therefore does not draw hordes of tourists or picnic crowds. Deserted spots always spell disaster for women.

Women rights groups and NGOs like Jagori have spent substantial time and effort in establishing the need for and demanding better lighting, accessible toilets, continuous footpaths, well-lit parking areas and better designed transport facilities to make women feel safer in public spaces. No such issues really bother PK, the man. To be fair to PK, he had his share of problems and violent encounters but none of them was exclusively linked to his gender.

Dissent

Our stone-eyed alien earned his titular moniker because people around him casually attributed his crazy questions to tipple and laughed them off. Imagine a lone crazy woman perceived drunk at a public place! “Drunk woman” is a magical phrase world across and particularly so in the Indian context. Slap it on a woman reporting sexual assault at a police station and poof, there is no crime to be reported at all! Assault transforms into consensual debauchery or corrective action or even a figment of drunken imagination. "Drunk woman" is also a multiple entry access card.

Towards the end, the chief antagonist of the film, Tapaswi Maharaj, agrees to a live debate with PK on national television on questions of God, faith and religious practices. Such an engagement is mostly denied to women dissenters. It is much easier to facilitate the unexplained disappearance of women whistle-blowers. In the hinterlands witch-burning, communally sanctioned rape and "sacrifice" are other ways of engagement.

No wonder, therefore, that the second batch of alien astronauts apparently has no women. PK slaps his fellow alien, played by Ranbir Kapoor, with stickers of myriad gods for his safety. Unfortunately, even the gods, in whose name elaborate "ghar wapsi" ceremonies are being held, seem to be helpless in ensuring a safe homecoming for women in this country.