Trigger Warning: Mentions Sexual Abuse and Gender based Violence
I recently watched a movie called Bhakshak and nothing caught my attention and interest more than the character - Baby Rani - The Warden of the Shelter Home that pushed orphan girls into sex trade and prostitution.
For me, She alone represented all those females over centuries who carried or supported crime against and suppression of women and all to please the man world whose validation is their only sense of achievement and identity. Every time I saw her on the screen I realised there are “so many of her” stitched across the social fabric.
That time in the movie when Baby Rani tells the newly appointed cook Sudha “Ye Bansi Sahu hain, inhe khush rakhogi to khush rahogi” I thought of all those women who raise “male pleasing” daughters merely for a social obligation to marry them off one day and never see them again; women who continue to stay first wives of their sons while they control and abuse the wife; women who destroy families for maintaining their own resources, women who believe and make believe that a man’s happiness is the divine you must pray and so he must be provided with sex, food, pleasing and everything he asks and then I thought of women who raise and condition these sons.
The time when Baby Rani tells the sexually abused girls to stay silent and do as they are told she represents all those women who stand with men to school a victim/survivor to behave and not forget that “she is a woman and everything is her fault”, those who keep poking the other about having a child, about being nice to a man despite him being violent and abusive, about adjusting because rules ask for it, about behaving chained because women being vocal creative or in love is morally corrupt in a society where rape and acid attacks are “fine” and domestic violence is “husband’s right”, about being polite and soft spoken even if men and other women are filthy, loud and criminal, about telling the daughters to adjust because sons are more family.
That scene in the movie when Baby Rani realizes the police raid and decides to unapologetically stay beside Bansi Sahu without hesitation she represents the biggest problem of the patriarchal society- the women who destroy other women and remain unapologetic about it to defend and guard the fake moral authority of a man with poor character and integrity to be able to prove their loyalty to such a man and to make supporting him look like some rebellion (sense of identity alongside powerful men which otherwise would have demanded integrity and hard work to build for self).
Bhumi Pednekar as Vaishali in Bhakshak
That time she represents mothers of rapist sons who “fight” to save their sons, she represents those mother in laws who join in murders for dowry and still manage to dance in second marriage of the same son, she represents the female advocates who defend men with charges of rapes, murders, acid attacks, abuse and domestic violence on them.
She becomes the woman who tells a son it is okay if he slapped his wife, the woman who character assassinates another woman and weaponizes world against them to fulfil their sense of validation and satiate jealousy, she becomes the woman who drops clothes to stay ahead in competition and destroys those who are genuinely competent. She becomes the woman who for years has followed “survival of the fittest” in a never ending race of pleasing men they crown as kings because that’s all they have ever known - man is provider and king no matter what he does.
She even becomes the teen girl who sits alone in large groups of same age boys to ”talk about” other girls and call it “being cool”, she becomes the neighbourhood women who spread fake narratives against a girl trying to build a career because they only see her returning late, she becomes the mother who puts fairness creams to the daughter to make her fair, mother who hushes a daughter who comes to her after being assaulted. She becomes the woman/girl who talks evil about other woman’s broken marriage because it makes her look better even if she experiences marital rape every night.
Sex trade is one of the filthiest crimes against women but it isn’t the only one. Being a woman in our country for years has been about facing hundreds of Baby Ranis who in reality are the real face of patriarchy while n numbers of Bansi Sahus work through them.
Vaishali gets her hard work’s result in the end because it was a movie. In reality hundreds of Vaishalis also hide in acid survivor homes, rape survivor homes, in graves and at homes because they had tried to raise voice against a system run by Men and operated by unapologetic Female Wardens of “Crime against Women.”
I somehow feel it is very important for every woman to make sure that whether they become Vaishali or not they do not even once in their lives accidentally or by choice, become Baby Ranis.