“A Thursday” Shows That Systemic Support In India Is Reserved For A Few

Trigger Warning: Mentions of gender based violence

With suggestions from my friends and him, I somehow managed to watch the movie – “A Thursday,” thanks to my brother, who gave me access to his Hotstar. The film was lovely, and there are a lot of points that I want to highlight, but I think most of the media did the same.

They talked about Naina Jaiswal’s (Yami Gautam) character, Atul Kulkarni’s effortless acting, and Neha Dhupia’s role as a pregnant cop. The movie stars Yami Gautam, Atul Kulkarni, Neha Dhupia, Dimple Kapadia, Maya Sarao, Karanvir Sharma, directed by Behzad Khambata.

It was nice to see all the characters, but the story was predictable. You know, where a hero kills the villain. It’s nice to see that the notions of ‘Heroes’ are changing in the mainstream media. Women are in the leading roles and the characters played by women are not merely seen as somebody’s girlfriend, wives, sisters or something, but they have specific individuality.

For instance, in this film, Yami Gautam’s character Naina Jaiswal had an individual character that could seek attention from the audience. Similarly, Neha Dhupia as a cop was lovely. A minor role of journalist or Savita Tai all showed their individuality, and once you finish watching the film, you will remember them as their identity.

So at least I can give marks to this film that portrays the ‘Hero’ as not just ‘He.’ Should I use the word ‘Hero’ or ‘Heroine?’ Since the mainstream of this word, Heroine is merely seen as a dancer. A sexy, hot woman is attractive in the film, loved by heroes and sometimes villains and the audience. Well, I would instead stick to the review of the film only.

The movie is about Naina Jaiswal of Mumbai’s Colaba. She runs a pre-nursery school where she has 16 children. One fine day on Thursday after a two-week-long holiday, she came with a gun and kidnapped all the sixteen nursery children.

As the movie progresses, it tells why she kidnapped the children, the driver, and the helper. This goes into her past and her vision for the future- Capital punishment. Neha asks for capital punishment from India’s prime minister (Dimple Kapadia).

So what’s something that I am bringing up other than the story and other reviews done by many newspapers and online media. It was constantly in my mind while watching the film – the children at the playschool. It was exciting to see these children in the school, the infrastructure, the kind of children’s accessories in terms of headphones and water bottles and bags; they were so fascinating to see.

When the movie started progressing, I saw these children’s parents working in very prestigious institutions or companies or somewhere else. In the film, Savitri Tai’s children were nowhere, so the question that was inconsistent in my mind – Do Savitri Tai and people like them afford these kinds of schools or maybe those accessories, water bottles, those kinds of bags and headphones?

Honestly, I have never seen such headphones in my life, not even in markets, and I wondered how they came to get these accessories. I am not jealous of these children. What I am saying is about affordability for people. My only concern is who can afford this kind of institution?

When I was small, my mother used to go to Pragati Maidan and Surajkund for her painting work. I used to live in a crutch, and there were many people whose parents used to have cars, and those kids used to come through their cars, and I was the only one who used to walk from my home, which was very far away. They used to have barbies and toys, and I had nothing—just a desire for someone who could lend me their toys, or maybe a car someday.

I could do clear-cut segregation of public spaces – one parallel to many people, including me, honestly. However, when there is so much disparity in terms of headphones which I still don’t have, I think it’s unfair to say that public spaces are accessible to all.

It is also essential to see what kind of public spaces are accessible? And for whom the public spaces are accessible? What is the definition of public spaces? For example, are playschools a public space? If it is, then who are the people who are accessing these?

There are so many Savitri who can’t afford these playschools. Still, they only dream about this, or maybe they are working there so that their children can afford other public spaces like schools because a playschool is a public space for a certain kind of public.

Another interesting thing to see was that Naina Jaiswal had an Apple laptop, and her house was not lavish but pleasant. Yet I saw that she didn’t get justice in her childhood, although her parents tried to. I mean, it’s great to see that she had parents who motivated her, encouraged her, and even supported her, which most people don’t get.

So that was the privilege that Naina got, but we also see that she didn’t get justice. So here, what idea popped up in my mind was that although being a person who can afford to go to a cop, lodge FIR, and at least constantly go and ask what kind of action has been taken, she didn’t get justice. So what about those people who don’t have the privilege to go to cops, lodge FIRs, ask cops about their actions, and have nobody in the back to support them?

Again my question is, who are the people who have access to these public institutions, including the justice system. So that brings me to write about what is in my mind – while watching the movie and even after that.

I do appreciate the film. I do appreciate the characters, the acting, everything. But I don’t appreciate what happened in the end because I honestly see it as something that additionally builds on the idea that:

“Okay, the constitution has no values. Institutions are like that. You are not going to get justice unless and until you have guns and power to take revenge.” So it’s anyway trying to emphasize that you know if you want to do justice with yourself, you need to do injustice because public spaces are only for a certain kind of public.