Sometimes things just surprise you. Sonam Nair’s short film starring Jackie Shroff and Neena Gupta might end up being one of them.
With the ban of recent movies like ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha’ (which explores female sexuality), you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that movies that openly explore sexuality might be facing the heat. Luckily ‘Khujli’ is there to prove you hilariously wrong.
The real power of ‘Khujli’ is in its ability to make the audience laugh and make a point at the same time. A middle-aged couple, Girdharilal and Roopmati, find a pair of pink furred handcuffs in their son’s bedroom and come together to awkwardly talk about sex and maybe y’know, try something different, and watching them, I freely admit I was grinning like a loon. They tumble over the vocabulary of romance, sex and ‘kink’ twenty-five years into their marriage and while it is funny, it’s also heartwarming.
It also goes to show just how repressed the very idea of sexuality is in Indian society that a long-married couple finds it distinctly awkward to even talk about the idea of sex, forget about trying out different ways of enjoying it.
Delightfully, the film approaches BDSM not like something ‘perverted’ or ‘wrong’ but a healthy way for a couple to express their sexuality, even if they’re not quite good at it yet. I found it slightly problematic that Fifty Shades of Grey was the jumping off point for this (Roopmati talks about how all the ‘neighbourhood ladies’, including herself, have read the book) since the book is in no way representative of how actual BDSM works and has been panned for being misogynistic and glorifying ‘domestic violence’.
But one of the reasons Fifty Shades of Grey was so popular (and continues to remain so) is that there are so few outlets for women, especially adult women, to freely express their sexuality. It’s the reason why women like Roopmati pick it up and enjoy it so much, to revel in their ‘hidden’ desires. The film touches on this and most importantly, does away with any sense of shame that somehow always gets shovelled in where sexuality is concerned. Which is great, because there is seriously nothing to be ashamed about in sex. It’s sex.
And maybe watching this middle-aged couple prove that to each other was the reminder you needed.