FILM REVIEW
‘Laapataa Ladies’: An Endearing Comedy
Sometimes one has to be lost to truly find who they are
Very few movies have successfully snatched my attention while I wrestled with the climactic pages of my book at hand. I’ve even devised ways to cheat sleep to avoid a pause in reading. So, a movie was often never powerful enough to meet the challenge.
But I found myself, first helplessly, then gleefully, relinquishing my attention to Laapataa Ladies when my husband turned it on in our hotel room in Geneva. The storyline was so interesting that I tried satisfying myself by reading its story on Wikipedia. But pretty quickly, I realised how humorous and captivating it was that I gave up control.
Set in a fictional village, resembling Madhya Pradesh in India, Laapataa Ladies is the story of a wedding mishap. The groom grabs the wrong bride and spends the next few weeks searching for the right one.
If you’re wondering how that might happen, you are not alone.
Imagine you are the groom, one who is approximately 23 years and two moons old.
You’d spent your entire life in the village, where your father, grandfather, and his father lived. You can’t say the same about your mom or your grandma, since they were married in from different villages.
You had never so much as stood next to a woman, let alone flirted, caressed, cuddled, hugged, or slept with. So, when your parents showed you the girl, a few villages away, almost 18 years old, her head held low with her eyes peeking out, drawing eights with her feet in shyness, you knew she was the one.
Your parents said her family was good and would pay a handsome dowry. She would cook, clean, and milk the cows. She would make you a proud father to many children. So, off you went to bring her home, her red saree wrapping her from head to toe like gift paper. You were the proud husband, looking forward to the boxing night like kids near the Christmas tree.
In the train, which was your limo, your entourage was the passengers crowding next to each other, some of whom were carrying their gift-wrapped brides.
“How old is your bride?”
“How much dowry did you get?”
After exchanging report cards on the marriages, you stepped out of your train at the crack of dawn. Gripping your bride’s arm and walking her to your home with your head held high — this was a moment you had been waiting for. At last, you were on the cusp of manhood.
But when you opened the gift, just enough for a peep, you realised that you had grabbed the wrong gift.
Santa had wrapped the two gifts identically. So, could you now own this gift instead? What happened to your gift? Had some other man taken it home? Or was it left abandoned on the train?
If you’re struggling in such an imaginary manhood, perhaps you could try being the gift he left behind, although by accident?
With 18 years under your belt, you are finally marriageable. You’d spent your entire life in your village, waiting for this moment. Not this moment of gift exchange, but the moment someone would claim you as his gift. You learned to cook, clean, and milk the cows with a pride befitting queens.
Why would you need to know your address when you knew he’d take care of you as your parents said he would?
So, off you went, wrapped head to toe in the most auspicious saree known to women. Your mom wore the same colour as her mom did, and so did your neighbour and every other woman in the region. You were sure he’d find you pretty in that red sari, demurely covering your face. You didn’t so much as lift the veil for the marriage photograph, for you were a gift just for his eyes.
When you climbed that train holding his hand, did you imagine waking up alone in a strange train station with the stationmaster asking, “Who are you, child? What’s your husband’s name?”
You show him your palm, not figuratively, in which, written in henna, is your husband’s name.
“Good girls don’t mention their husband’s name”; you would have made your mother-in-law proud.
“Perhaps the good girl would know her address? Her village? Her phone number?”
“Don’t mock me, sir. I know how to cook, clean, and milk cows.”
Laapataa Ladies might be the story of Deepak and his lost bride, Phool. But stuck between the two is Pushpa, the bride who was wrongly grabbed.
The wrong and the right brides are two products of the same society. One, brought up to be an obedient and meek wife who wouldn’t say her husband’s name. And the other, who is forced to be a wife to someone who marries just for the dowry.
Through the mischievous plot, narrated in a heartwarming and funny way, the movie shows us rural India. It’s colourful and chaotic.
“If someone steals your sandals from the front of the temple, it’s okay to grab a pair that’s lying there instead. So, what’s wrong with grabbing the wrong bride if you lost yours?” the groom’s nephew asks.
In that India, mobile phones are rare. Patriarchy rules the day. Dowries and bribes are natural. Women aren’t educated. Kidnapping brides for their jewels and kidnapping grooms for an inexpensive wedding are common. If the setting appears chaotic and depressing, the movie makes up for it in its humor. Not a moment goes by without a cackle.
When the groom and his friends report the mishap to the police, “He was returning with his bride last night and lost her on the way,” the police inspector responds, “What’s your secret? I’ve tried for years, but I can’t seem to lose her.”
The movie calls out the not-so-subtle patriarchy that’s pervasive everywhere. It tells the tale of the women who give up making their favourite food unless their men also favour them; the ones who are never appreciated for their skills at home; the ones who eventually forget what they are capable of.
Often, we watch stories about social malaises only to feel frustrated. Even when the movies attempt humour, they’re sardonic. But Laapataa Ladies holds art as the brush for social education in the most endearing way. It informs you without being preachy. It entertains you without leaving you depressed about the state of affairs.
The movie lets the audience accept rural life for its good, bad, and ugly qualities without feeling helpless. It reminds us that it’s important to know, but not always as important to act. It’s necessary to know that such people exist. Their superstitions and ways of life are as important to them as our stock markets and mobile phones are to us.
At the end of the movie, after learning more about these people, one feels hopeful. It’s not always the hope for a better, more modern future. But it’s the hope for a simple life in which everyone has a place.
