The role women play?

Uski Roti (Your Bread, Punjabi; 1969)
Direction: Mani Kaul

A discussion came up with a friend the other day. Rama and Sita are hailed as exemplary beings who lived to the expectations of how a human should live on Earth. Take the perspective of Sita. A princess by birth, not exposed to the rumble and tumble of living in the wild, had no choice but to follow her husband, Rama, when the King decreed that he should spend 14 years of exile in the jungle. Playing the role of a good wife, she just followed without any opposition. 

Through no fault of hers, she had to endure the kidnapping and incarceration in Lanka. She did not develop Stockholm Syndrome but stayed steadfast that her beau would save the day. When she was eventually rescued and finally returned to Ayodhya, she was not hailed as a good wife. She was instead used as a bad example when a dhoby refused to accept his wayward wife back to fold after being caught in a possible remorseful affair.

Rama, living up to the role of a King, and Sita, the symbol of a chaste Queen, had to endure tests of fidelity. Sita took all these in stride. When a pregnant Sita was sent off to the jungles a second time, her thoughts were only about who would perform her wifely duties in her absence. It seems that she had no resentment against the King for the turmoil she had to endure in the name of royal reputation. Such is said to be the role of a good Indian wife - to trust that the husband would do the correct thing for the household and its family members. Of course, neither everyone can be Rama nor can everyone be a Sita!

Fast forward to the present. A modern person cannot stomach all this bunkum. To him or her, individual liberty is prime. Individual rights, freedom of expression and non-conformity to traditional, seemingly archaic, unscientific dogma are essential. Maybe in that way, this movie highlights the patriarchal nature of our societies and how females have to play the part of a quiet wife. This can be quite challenging when a traditional society expects a female member of a community to be seen, not heard. She is expected to perform her preset duties and not question or give opinions! But then, detractors would assert that eventually, the wayward husband came back to his senses, and that is the role of a wife, a stabilising figure.

This 1969 award-winning new-wave cinema movie from the land of Kamasutra is a non-linear presentation of a tale of philandering inter-city bus driver, Sucha Singh, and his obedient wife, Balo. The wife faithfully prepares his daily supply of meals to pass to him when he passes the village bus stop. Sucha Singh is a creep. He comes home only once a week. He spends all the time immersed in the pleasure of alcohol, gambling and his mistress.

Balo, who lives with her younger sister, is quite aware of her two-timing husband. She hangs on, maybe due to financial dependence or avoiding the stigma of being a divorcee or just hoping that he will repent. At the same time, Balo has to fend off an aggressor from her sister. 

In this profoundly slow-moving presentation which focuses a lot on inanimate objects and body parts rather than on faces, we get a flip flop between the present and past of what happens in Balo and Sucha. A simple story that brings back the memory of our past when days felt like longer than 24 hours and a year felt like a lifetime!

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