Lajja (2001)

लज्जा

It sucks to be a woman.

That alone is not the message of Lajja ("shame"), a sweeping investigation of various forms of subjugation of women across class and caste, but it might be the predominant thought in the viewer's mind through most of the movie's generous 200 minutes.  Lajja is a strong film at moments, but it is not always easy viewing.

The story opens with Vaidehi (Manisha Koirala), a fish-out-of-water in New York City, married to the wealthy, important, and arrogant Raghu (Jackie Shroff).  Raghu's business is unspecified, but his preference for a playboy lifestyle is quite apparent.  When Vaidehi complains about Raghu's open dalliances with other women, he exhorts her to "grow up" and join the twenty-first century, and even knocks her about a bit just to make clear who controls the parameters of the relationship.  After one such row he sends her back to India, to her father's house; her father, for his part, is shamed by her return and coldly insists that her place is with her husband.  When Raghu learns that Vaidehi is pregnant, he schemes to have her return to New York so that he can collect his heir, after which he will dispense with her.  On the eve of her return Vaidehi learns of his plans, and flees into the night on her own.  This is where her adventures through the shades of feminine misery really begin. 

As Vaidehi travels through the countryside, she meets several women, each suffering from her own experience of subjugation at the hands of men.  First up is Maithili (Mahima Choudhary), who is about to be married to a man she loves, provided her father can satisfy the greed of the groom's father, who wants only to extract as much dowry money as he can to compensate for the great favor of relieving a man of his daughter.  Next on the list is Janki (Madhuri Dixit), a theatrical performer.  Janki is pregnant by her lover Manish (Samir Soni), the leading man of her theater company, whom she has plans to marry.  The jealous director of the company - who keeps his own wife in strict purdah, scolding her for so much as looking out the window - wants Janki for his mistress, and plants questions in Manish's mind as to who might really be the father of Janki's baby, with tragic results.   The final chapter of Vaidehi's journey takes her to a rural village where the spunky, feminist midwife-healer Ramdulaari (Rekha) has ruffles the feathers of powerful local men and must pay the consequences.  Meanwhile Vaidehi's husband Raghu, who has been in hot pursuit across the country, posts increasingly large rewards for her return, causing the villagers to take a real interest in her whereabouts. 

Each of the women Vaidehi encounters somehow finds her voice, perhaps with the help of Vaidehi's presence but not really due to her interference.  Each stands up against her situation and against the men that manipulate her, though it turns out better for some of them than for others. 

The "shame" of the film's title is not the women's shame, but shame on India.  Vaidehi's speech at the film's climax makes this explicit, as she chastises her nation for worshiping its mothers only so long as they keep silent and do what they are told.  The message of shame to the nation is also woven tightly into the symbolism invoked throughout the film.  All four of the women's names, for example, are appellations of the goddess Sita, and the men who control and subjugate them sport monikers of Sita's consort, Ram.  Thus the film is constructed as a criticism of one of the religious legends that contribute to the very foundation of Indian culture.  Indeed, the climax of Janki's story is a feminist re-scripting of the story of Sita's trial by fire, in which Janki, as Sita, asks her lover, as Ram, why only she must be tested and not he as well. 

There are good men in the story, salt-of-the-earth type guys, notably a charmingly endearing thief who has decided to go straight (Anil Kapoor) and a brooding, violent, forest-dwelling Robin Hood sort (Ajay Devgan) who is instrumental in the film's climactic confrontation.  Unfortunately this latter presents one of the film's most irritating weaknesses.  Much of the last 40 minutes is devoted to violent confrontations between angry males; Lajja is a better film when it is about women.  The uber-male strutting and sparring distracts from the film's focus, undermining it with a suggestion that despite all the inspiring courage of its women, in the end they still need a man with a machete to protect them.

Still, Lajja is good film.  At times it waxes heavy-handed and preachy, but the story survives this because its characters are so entertainingly drawn and presented.  Madhuri and Rekha are particularly delicious to watch, inhabiting characters who are loud, brash, tough, animated, and compassionate.  Madhuri's entrance presents her in a stage performance of "Pyar kiya to darna kya" from Mughal-e-azam, and her reincarnation of Madhubala is a real treat.  Lajja also exposed an earthy, extroverted side of Rekha that I had never seen before, and that I liked much more than her customary ethereal will-o'-the-wisp soft-focus persona. 

Lajja's music, by Anu Malik, is decent but forgettable.  The film includes reasonably entertaining item numbers by Urmila Matondkar and Sonali Bendre, but the unquestionable highlight is Madhuri's kinetic dance number, "Badi mushkil."

Rekha's earthy side.

Comments

[Nina]

Lajja made me really angry. Great premise, but dreadful film (apart from the half-hour with Madhuri, which was fantastic, especially her turning the tables at Sita's trial by fire). But in a film which is explicitly about women -- their trials, their strength, their unfair subjugation -- why is not one single woman able to save herself? And it's not just down to external circumstance: the heroine has the strength of a dishrag. The fact that the responsibility to either subjugate or save women is still ultimately left to the men in this supposedly feminist film is what made me really angry. I feel the director destroyed his own moral theme by falling back into the bolly-trap of letting men solve everything (with their fists).

Love the blog, btw. Thanks for all the effort you put in it.

[carla]

Thanks for visiting and commenting, Nina. I completely agree with you that Lajja undermined its own message. It's possible, though, that the women being unable to save themselves was part of the point - especially in the case of Rekha's character. In that the case the message might be, it's not enough for women to be strong and stand up for themselves; the men who are doing the subjugating and abusing have to change as well. That's just a thought - I'm not sure it really holds up.

[Amit]

This was a movie??? More like 3+ hours of continuously hitting the viewer on the head with a 2x4. What happened to subtlety? Creativity? Imagination? Zilch!! These were more like caricatures than real characters with any depth or complexity. The only time the movie sprang into life was during some Madhuri scenes.

The message of female empowerment (which I think is important) was totally lost in the way the story was told and the simplistic (idiotic) resolution. Sad to say, one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Let's see how "Matrabhoomi" stacks up (similar message) which is next on my viewing list.

-Amit

[Srinivas]

Agree 100% with Amit up there. It was a terrible terrible movie and the ending was just awful. And all that when packed with great performers and premise. Loved the central conceit of all the heroines with their names being a variation os Sita. And Madhuri was the pnly strong point. But, the movie really sucked. What a pity!

[madhurima]

A leading newspaper review of Lajja had this tagline, "Women of the world unite! You have nothing to loose but your rubber sandals."

[maxqnz]

"the climax of Janki's story is a feminist re-scripting of the story of Sita's trial by fire, in which Janki, as Sita, asks her lover, as Ram, why only she must be tested and not he as well. "

That could be interesting to watch. Sita's trial by fire has long troubled me for the sheer brazenness of its misogyny and an open challenge to it could be worth watching.

"Vaidehi's speech at the film's climax makes this explicit, as she chastises her nation for worshiping its mothers only so long as they keep silent and do what they are told."

FWIW, Nikaah (1982) closes with a monologue of similar theme, and opens with an even longer one addressing the same issue. :)

[carla]

Madhurima: thanks for your comment. :)

max: I wonder how you would feel about this film; you might find it ponderous, as it's quite unsubtle in its browbeating, and apart from a few characters it paints a rather bleak picture of Indian men. And yet it has a few redeeming features; Madhuri's and Rekha's segments are worth seeing, at least, and even though I don't really feel compelled to watch the film again I would at least like to rewatch those.

[maxqnz]

"and apart from a few characters it paints a rather bleak picture of Indian men."

I can take it. I am, after all, a man who likes Mira Nair films, and if there's anyone more committed to misandry in desi film-making I haven't found them. :)

Seriously, though I was raised by an Anglo-Indian man (a real sweetheart, unlike my mother) and grew up next door to an almost filmi stereotypical Indian male, and between those and my subsequent experiences with desi friends I have no fondness for that patronising brand of chauvinism. That's why Indian movies that challenge the stereotype, as it seems this one tries to, interest me so much. I shall keep an eye out for it.

[maxqnz]

That was some brain meltdown, writing Mira Nair when I meant Deepa Mehta!