When I say, ‘Rural India,’ my mind goes back to some of the bloggers and TV actors promoting touching husband’s feet in 2024. While one lady is a pilot, the other is a well-known actress. When women like them practise such things in the name of Indian culture, I wonder if movies like Laapata Ladies are only relevant to rural India?
But, why I said rural India is because how accessible is Netflix to them? It must be accessible but how many women have paid subscriptions to the platform to watch this film? Laapata Ladies, in a subtle way, makes women question their choices and also teaches them to have a voice and ‘an opinion for themselves.’ Why am I saying ‘themselves?’ Because sometimes, one must only care for oneself and the rest, automatically, falls into place. The same applies to women. If every single woman starts to take care of herself and fight for her rights, things might just fall in place. Savitribai Phule and Rani Laxmibai are two examples of what women can do and what women should do.
When it comes to Laapata Ladies, we are told a story of two women, Phool Kumari and Jaya, who are just married. While travelling back to their husbands’ hometowns in a train, Jaya gets down with Phool Kumari’s husband, Deepak while Phool gets down at the last station with Jaya’s husband. But since she knows her husband, she decides to wait at the railway station till her husband comes back to take her.
Now, Deepak knows his wife has been misplaced and starts looking for her. On the other hand, Phool has absolutely no knowledge about where she was headed. Why? It’s her husband’s responsibility to look after her so it’s okay if she doesn’t know anything about her own existence.
While Jaya purposely hides her details from Deepak and is all set to leave the village on her own and not go back to her husband, Phool is left at the mercy of beggars and food stall owners at the station. What unfolds later and how Deepak finds his wife is a journey of these characters and in my opinion, on this difficult road, you should walk with them only then will you be able to absorb the essence of this film.
I am not giving away any more details. So, go and watch Laapata Ladies now.
A big round of applause to the entire team for conceptualising, writing, and then executing such a wonderful story with so much honesty and warmth.
