Reaction To “Gehraiyaan” Goes Deep Into The Double Standards Of Men

It doesn’t take conservatives to get butt-hurt about the most random trivial things.

“Gehraiyaan” movie is the new punching bag for conservatives for various reasons, from promoting infidelity in our society to it being a pornographic film and how Ranveer Singh can allow his wife to get intimate with her male co-star!

Say hello to the double standards of the ‘sanskari’ (customary) men. Again!

The latest news is that the former police commissioner and ADGP (Railways) Bhaskar Rao couldn’t tolerate the movie for more than 20 minutes. So far, so good. But his stupid reason is that he didn’t ‘approve’ of Deepika Padukone’s choices in the movie.

Again, the typical stereotypical and hypocritical response you’d expect from our ‘sanskari’ men. When will male actors be held accountable for their ‘choices’ that corrupt our ‘sanskari’ culture? While these men have an owl’s eye on women’s choices, they’re as blind as a bat to the men’s choices. Be it in movies or otherwise.

Why couldn’t the retired commissioner blame Siddhant Chaturvedi’s choices in the movie? Akhir taali ek haath se toh nahin bhajti nahi (One cannot clap with one hand)! Besides, he’s the one who initiated this ‘unsanskari’ infidelity.

Why should the onus of upholding the honour and sanctity of long-term committed relationships lie solely upon a woman’s shoulders?

Tuada kutta ‘Tommy’ sada kutta kutta (Your dog is called Tommy, but my dog is only a dog)? I don’t know about you, but I find the hypocrisy of ‘sanskari’ men nauseating.

These ‘sanskari’ men wear western-style shorts and shirts but dictate what clothes the women should drape in or get disrobed from. Talking of attire, Deepika Padukone and Ananya Pandey’s athleisure outfits have also come under fire. It’s a woman’s agency whether she chooses to wear sports bras onscreen or in the park.

None of us has the right to condemn adult women’s choices if we do not hold adult men accountable for their choices. Instead, we’ve seen female actors in movies like “Fire,” “Lipstick Under My Burkha,” “Veere Di Wedding,” and now “Gehraiyaan” draws ire from the conservatives.

A “Kabir Singh” Bekhayali style can troll topless, smoke, and drink like there’s no tomorrow, and get intimate with numerous women and still be a ‘sanskari’ boy. But if women actors play remotely similar roles on screen, they are corrupting our sanskaar (sacraments), parampara (traditions), maryada (modesty), and whatnot.

Movies are a depiction of reality. Infidelity is all around us. I remember seeing ‘sanskari’ married men and women in our apartment having affairs as a child. Or fellow ‘sanskari’ batchmates who went on group vacations and swapped their partners.

To pretend that infidelity doesn’t exist in our society is hypocritical. To blame movies and especially its women actors for promoting infidelity is ludicrous. The conservative retired commissioner got a sane reply from Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who tweeted:

Whether you loved the film or not, whether you thought the movie had depth or not, the one takeaway from “Gehraiyaan” that we can all agree upon is that we are all messed up human beings.

Deepika Padukone, who played the ‘bent but not broken’ character of Alisha Khanna with utmost sensitivity and conviction, drawing from her lived experiences with depression, says it best –

“I didn’t see Alisha as wrong or right. That’s not the tonality of the film. The film is not saying that oh! look, here are these flawed characters and let’s go on a journey with them and by the end of it dissect and decide who is right and wrong. The idea of the film is observational that there are different kinds of people in the world. These kinds of people exist. Are we able to empathize with these characters? You don’t have to agree with her choices. I don’t agree with her choices. as actors, you have to step out of the lens of judgment.”

“Gehraiyaan” is about how all of us are perfectly capable of sinking into the depths of darkness. So, everyone deserves empathy and redemption for their questionable choices.

But somehow, this leeway is generously granted to only men and not women in our country. So when will ‘sanskari’ men stop policing women in our country? But again –

Kaisa hai kaun hai woh jaane kahan hai (How is he, who is he, where is he)?

Until now, I haven’t come across a single ‘sanskari’ man by deed and action. I have seen several sanskari women, though. So if you find him, please do me a favour and send me his number. I’d love to meet this mythical creature.

The article was previously published here.