Lipstick Under Our Burkhas

After a long day of lectures and classes, my friends and I excitedly packed our bags and raced to the nearest cinema hall screening ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha’, with ticket rates that comfortably fit in our narrow student budgets. Extremely enthusiastic about the film that made it to the Indian cinema halls after months of fighting, debating, and arguing with governmental and patriarchal authorities, we used our dupattas to imitate the head piece of a burkha and decorated our lips with vibrant shades of pink and red, to support its cause.
We wore our lipstick proudly as it stood for every dream we’ve dreamt — some light and shy as pink some audacious and strong as bright red.
Throughout the movie, we empathized with every character and left the hall with the hope that this bold piece of work will bring more awareness amongst the masses about the hidden colours of female sexuality.
The next day when I excitedly asked a male colleague if he’d watched the movie, he said
“I don’t watch this kind of feminist stuff”
As much as that staunch chauvinist, misogynist, sexist reply shocked me, it made me realise the importance of bringing more movies centralised around feminist themes into commercial cinema, for it is such a powerful tool to question, inspire and bring change.
So here I go again writing about women’s issues and this time, it is about the ‘Lipstick Under Our Burkhas’
The word ‘lipstick’ here symbolizes a female’s ambitions and the word ‘burkha’ stands for the visible-cum-invisible obstacle that hinders her path towards the accomplishment of those aspirations.
Apart from bonding over the movie, my friends and I realised that each one of us had a shade of lipstick to hide as it was either too intense for the weak eyes of society or too scandalous for its rigidity. These shades represented our want of professional freedom, right to pursue financial independence, autonomy over our choice of clothes, authority to choose our time of marriage.

It is hard for me to forget the times when I heard women question themselves over their wishes. These wishes are sometimes trivial (to wear an off-shoulder/crop top, to drink some alcohol at a friend’s wedding, to smoke outside the work premise, to ask a guy out first, to run in an open field, etc) and sometimes extremely significant to their existence (to study, to work, to marry later, etc). Each time a woman wishes for something meant to fulfill her individualistic desire there is always a cloud of doubt surrounding that mental wish. Culture, religion, society have always been impediments and continue to tell us not to -
Stay out late. Wear the clothes we want. Talk loudly. Chew hastily. Open our hair. Stain our pants. Wear jeans. Talk to boys. Study. Work. Neglect household chores. Talk about inappropriate things. Fantasize sex.
There are workplaces that don’t treat women equally. There are universities that try to tame girls by forcing salwar kameez on them. There are moral policepersons who look at punishing the ones breaking their code of ethics. There are families where women don’t dare to dream and our society is the one where a woman’s existential importance (even today) is measured by her ability to reproduce, clean and satisfy her husband’s gastronomic and sexual desires.
Female ambitions, goals, wants, wishes, needs, desires were never meant materialise into reality and today they are forgotten along the path of life but the current generation has been growing its consciousness about gender equality and the situation has begun to change at a snail’s pace (I am at least happy that the process has started although we still have a long way to go!).
There are still a lot of regressively powerful blocks that make the modern dissidents think of their aspirations as inconsequential when they grow in age and acclimatize to social standards of womanhood. It makes them unconfident of themselves and believe that their dreams are ignominious. These hurdles need to be obliterated in order to empower every woman to lift her veil of insecurity, self-doubt, and fear and display her ambition on her face with innate confidence.
If you think about it, the hurdles that fall on the road to gender equality can be personified as burkhas. They are primarily the mindset of the communities we live in, that impede our vision and focus by adding a black curtain of patriarchy-led ostracism, disempowerment and helplessness.
(Here, I’d like the reader to note that the personification of the burkha is metaphorical and has no connection whatsoever with its religious significance)
In times like these, the creation of movies like LUMB is imperative. The movie showcases the hidden desires (not ONLY sexual) of four women belonging to different age groups and the societal impediments that stand in their way. It ends leaving the audience without a typical climax but raises several questions in the minds of the viewers about how the movie should have ended. It comically yet bravely brings the rarely touched topic of female sexuality into light as it elaborates on completely different sexual needs of four women and implicitly tells us that it is normal and natural for a woman to crave for the kind of sex she enjoys, which must also be accepted by society.
I didn’t feel that there was anything amiss with the story. It was realistic and enraging for every woman, who understands what it means to have hopes (lipstick) stuffed under a bed (burkha), never to be given a chance at life.
There may be erudite experts commenting on the film’s direction, screenplay, etc but as a common viewer and an ardent feminist, I’ll continue to encourage and support films, works of art or anything for that matter — which stand against all forms of discrimination and help spread the message of equality amongst all genders, communities, religions, castes and races.
With countless veils of stereotypes, customs, cultural mandates, and religious labels to lift, we as a society have a long way to go before all the members can fearlessly chase their ambitions.
There is still time for the burkhas to be permanently removed so that our lipsticks can be passionately applied and uninhibitedly displayed. A valiant few are doing it in these times of intolerance and controversy. Some like you, some like us are hoping that our defiant actions will strengthen the revolution of eliminating unequal norms.
We walked out the hall with the same spirit and unabashedly grinned to flaunt the different shades of dreams (lipstick) that beautified our souls (lips), without any reservations (burkhas).

I positively believe that soon enough there won’t be curtains standing in the way, separating the dreamer from her dreams and hiding lipsticks under burkhas.
When you and I look at every human as an individual with his/her own ships to sail, forts to conquer, summits to climb and nights to enjoy, the world will be in balance again.