What's a girl like you doing in a film like this?

2024: The year we welcomed back real women to Bollywood

The word Laapataa means ‘missing or lost’ in Hindi and it is ironic that it took a film called Lost Ladies (Laapataa Ladies, 2024) to bring back the women who have gone totally missing from mainstream Indian cinema: in all their real and imperfect glory. Because let’s face it, real women are neither perfect, nor perfect ‘heroine’ material. They do not embody superhuman qualities or extraordinary courage. For God’s sake – and this is Bollywood – they don’t even look drop-dead gorgeous and they cannot dance! So what does this make them? Like you and me!

However, their ordinary stories get the audience to empathise with them in a touchy-feely way that the impossibly beautiful and gifted heroines of Bollywood simply cannot achieve. The women in the audience see in these new screen stars something of themselves, the men recognise the glimmer of their spirited wives and daughters; and there you have it – a low budget film that goes on to make lots of money! Laapataa Ladies has earned over Rs 27 crore at the box office so far on an investment of 4-5 crore and has also been announced as India’s official entry to the Oscars. Compare this with an average ROI of 12% for Reliance Jio’s big budget films and you get the picture. Reality sells. Good storytelling sells. Even heroine-led films sell. Once an absolute no-no in Bollywood, films with women in pivotal roles are doing well with the critics and the great Indian public. Bring on the ladies!

On the surface, the story of Laapataa Ladies is about two rural brides getting exchanged in a crowded train and alighting at the wrong platform with the wrong husband. The opening scenes feature a common sight during the wedding season in India: multiple brides in the traditional red bridal saree, their veils fully covering their faces. This serves as a powerful visual cue for commodification of women. Is the audience supposed to feel that one woman is as good as another, totally exchangeable, and tradeable? No, says the film emphatically. The storyline goes on to unravel their identities and their character in how they deal with their travails. Both Phool and Pushpa are strong in their own way and get out of the muddle by using their wits and talent.

The film maker has carefully set the story in the early 2000s when mobile phone usage and literacy amongst women was not quite what it is today. According to Statista 2022 figures, more than 69.1% of Indian women are literate today as compared to only 47.8% in 2001. This would make the storyline unreal today – Phool would have a phone and she would know the name of her village and her husband’s village. However, reality is not about statistics, it is about striking a chord with the audience and getting them to empathise with the ladies and it is here that the film succeeds spectacularly. We laugh and cry with the ladies, we take one look at the deserted train station and feel a shiver run down our spine, we are hesitant and shy like the newly married girls were with a whole new set of people ( their in laws) in our lives. Yes, we may not have been exchanged as brides but hey, we have all negotiated tricky and sometimes dangerous situations in life, and that is where reality hooks its anchor. It is through their faltering steps and hesitant forays into their new lives, that audiences are drawn in and engaged. Their actions are not heroic or larger than life - cooking at a railway platform food stall in the case of Phool and encouraging her sister in law to paint and advising her family on agriculture in the case of Pushpa – but they are real and relatable. That is what makes the women real and it has been a long time coming.

Given the fact that India remains a largely patriarchal society and the commercial success of heroine-led films has been questionable, it made sense for 20^th century Indian film makers to hedge their bets with male stars whom they could bank on – literally and metaphorically! So Mother India (1957) featured Nargis in a pivotal role but she was surrounded by three hunky heroes, Rajendra Kumar, Raaj Kumar and Sunil Dutt so the testosterone (and bank) balance was maintained. Similarly, Seeta aur Geeta (1972) had not just Hema Malini playing a double role but also had double billing: top heroes Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar shared the limelight with the heroine.

In more recent decades, there have been several mainstream films with strong female characters. Among them, No one killed Jessica (2011), Kahani (2012), Queen (2013), Mary Kom (2014) and Neerja ( 2016) which have gone on to do well at the box office. These have been largely biographical epics celebrating the life of extraordinary people (not necessarily women) whether in the field of sport (Olympic medal winning boxer, Mary Kom), journalism (No one killed Jessica) or plane hijacking (Air stewardess Neerja who lost her life). The films celebrate extraordinary courage and the protagonists just happen to be women.

Even the fictionalised accounts like Queen and Kahani are dramas about extraordinary situations- not all girls go for a solo honeymoon to Europe and not all women search across continents for a missing husband while pregnant. They are gripping yes, well-crafted certainly, but they are not about the lives of ordinary women. Not in the way Laapataa Ladies is: a middling, muddling comedy of errors which has little drama or heroics. This is an everyday story that could happen to anyone and the women in it are not larger than life, they are life-sized.

I suppose the trend to feature extraordinary women in pivotal roles is a necessary first step and it is because Mary Kom and Neerja were celebrated on celluloid that Laapataa Ladies could be made. It gave Bollywood the courage to experiment further and feature ordinary women, not just extraordinary ones.

It may be worth noting at this point that ordinary men have had no problem being featured in lead roles… in the last century or this one. Take Charlie Chaplin, who embodied human weakness in a loveable way or Forrest Gump whose disability turns out to be an advantage. All these male characters have had Indian films made about them: Raj Kapoor immortalised Charlie Chaplin and Lal Singh Chaddha (2022) was a remake of Forrest Gump. The audience has no problems sitting through several hours of ordinary lives or accepting his foibles provided the hero is a man. Why should it take the extraordinary stories of extraordinary women to make successful films? The triumph of Laapataa Ladies is precisely this: that it makes loveable characters out of ordinary women.

The trend to make television-sized reality films with real men and women started during the pandemic when large scale shooting schedules could not happen,

Photo by Shlag on Unsplash

but it seems to have continued as far as women are concerned. Sure, there is Pushpa The Rule ( 2024) in all its large-screen testosterone-dripping box office muscle but there is also a gentle Mr and Mrs Mahi (2024) with a husband coaching his gifted cricketer wife. In a country where ladies cricket has just taken off, a much welcome nod to female sport. And Crew (2024) which actually strips off the glamour and depicts air hostesses as girls worried about their next pay check.

I was done with fake women who ran around trees in impossibly high heels and waited for the hero to come rescue them. And I guess, so were you. So let us celebrate 2024 as the year when ordinary girls claimed the Hindi film screen as their own and made extraordinary magic happen.