Saturday, March 15, 2014

W - Women of Today


Cast: Leeza Mangaldas, Lezlie Tripathy, Sonal Giani, Raaj Singh Arora, Danish Pandor, Abhey Jit Attri, Meer Ali, Gagan Guru
Genre: Thriller, Social Issue
Direction: Tarun Madan Chopra
Production: Subhash Sehgal, Shivang Sehgal
Story: Tarun Madan Chopra
Cinematographer: Bhavesh Rawal
Music: Daboo Sardar Malik
Lyricist: Daboo Sardar Malik
Editing : Altaf Shaikh
Studio : Legacy Film Productions
Release Date: 14th March, 2014
Language: Hindi
Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes
Rating: 3.5 /5 (Good+)
W – Women of Today is a movie, which I feel, is beyond any sort of review / rating. With great lump in my throat, I just am trying to put some thoughts about the plot of the movie, not trying to review.
The movie is woven around the gang rape of two women. Sandhya aka Sandy Singh (Leeza Mangaldas), Roohi Malik (Lezlie Tripathy) and Manu (Sonal Giani), three young women, who run an event management company called “W” are gearing up for their biggest event – The Freedom Concert (name of the concert thoughtfully chosen by the filmmaker). Initial moments of the movie although are bit overdone to project the chilled out attitude of the modern women. But then the plot starts developing further and believe me, it is very very disturbing to sit through the movie.

Abhay aka Bhaiji (Raaj Singh Arora), Dhruv (Danish Pandor), Chote (Abhey Jit Attri, sons of a minister, are reckless, brutal, loathsome, bloody (sorry to use this word) rapists. They end up doing the gang-rape of Sandy and Roohi. Look at the logic of these rapists. They hit Manu and left her on road just because she was in her almost manly dress-up viz. jeans and shirt and a bob haircut) and so these guys were not interested to ‘do anything with her’. The first victim of their gang rape is Sandy because according to them she wears short clothes and so only she is a ‘dhabba’ for the women community. So called moral police of our society. The next victim is Roohi (though she is clad in a salwaar-suit) because she is attractive and is a bonus to fulfill the rapist instincts of these cruel men.
Alas! I had to keep my eyes off the screen now and then since it made me feel the pain of all the females who are being raped every now and then. What they go through, how they go through, their pain, helplessness, their screamings, their physical and emotional bruises, their humiliations …oh my god, the list is endless … Still not able to put words across with tears in my eyes…
Tarun Madan Chopra (Director and Story) has tried to give lot of courage to the rape victims through this movie. Women of today are not supposed to sulk in a corner of a dark room after being raped. The rapists get courage to repeat their acts only because we women are not ready to fight (yes, we can not ignore the poor system, legal hassles and the humiliations which one has to face). Generally victims feel that “Meri Ijjat  loot li gayi...” whereas, Tarun conveys beautifully through the dialogue of Sandy – “Meri Ijjat mere paas hai, jise koi nahi loot sakta... han, tum rape kar sakte ho lekin meri ijjat nahi cheen sakte…”
The dialogue by Sandy gave me goosebumps: “Nothing can stop me. It is not in my DNA”.

The scene where Roohi (Lezlie) reacts to one of the rapists when he says that he would marry Sandy is also superb.

It is great to see the women not succumbing to the distress, rather they get up with great courage to teach these men a lesson by exposing them to the world. Although it seems unbelievable that the women get the physical and mental strength soon after the incident to fight with the men, but probably this is the vision of the director that we shall not be victims to our miseries, especially because, being raped is not the fault of the women, it is the result of vulgar / bad / dirty thoughts of the men.
The music may not be running the popularity chartbusters, but a few songs are with very good lyrics. Daboo Mallik needs a great applause for the music and lyrics. Total six tracks are there. Lyrics of the Women’s day anthem – “Dil ke jo hi armaan hai pure ho saare, khud me hai junoon to ye dil himmat kyon haare  …” sung by Neha Bhasin is great.
Overall, the movie might have a few flaws as far as the storytelling and editing are concerned, but such a concept needs this brash treatment.
The sad part is that this movie has not attracted the attention of movie critics (forget about getting an audience) who write and update reviews of almost all the movies immediately after the first show. I wish, we could be atleast more socially responsible to highlight the intention of such movies.  
Yes, this movie is definitely not pleasing to watch, but, male fraternity shall watch it to learn to give respect to women and we, the women shall watch it to transform ourselves into ‘Women of Today’ who is strong, courageous, true to self, who is not ready to yield to someone else’s crimes, gathers the strength to get up even after a fall and fight for punishing the criminals.  

W – Women of Today, as the punch line goes, is all about “Unleashing Womentality”. 

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