I have always loved going to the movies with my family. That feeling of sitting in a dark room and forgetting about the whole world for a few hours has always been magical. Whenever things used to feel overwhelming in my life, the idea of just going to the theatres and sitting there with my family became my escape and turned me into someone people generally call a movie buff!

Like it happens with most teenagers struggling to navigate the complexities of life, there was a time when I was having trouble with a very close friend of mine.  I had started to feel as if the bond that I once shared with that person was no longer adding value to my life, and whatever was left, was draining me. I have always been sensitive and have had people advise me to let go of this quality in order to not keep getting hurt in this harsh world. But I have always had a very different opinion. I feel that my sensitivity makes me who I am. Having said that, it is sometimes burdensome and exhausting to be the only person in the room who feels a little extra or who sees things from a very different emotional lens. Because of this, I have also been someone who finds it difficult to let go or give up on people. I keep giving people chances, hoping for them to change for the better, and most often than not, cry myself to sleep, drenching my poor pillow covers in tears on most nights. Being my over-forgiving self, I was not giving up on this friend of mine as well, even though I was aware that some of their actions had lately been making me feel sick to my gut. 

Then, one day, my family and I went to watch the movie,  “Thappad” (The Slap), by Anubhav Sinha. I buried into my seat and tried to lose myself for a few hours in the dark theatre, unaware that this movie was going to change my life in lot more ways than I could have ever imagined. The protagonist in this movie, Amrita, a homemaker, gets slapped by her husband  at a party as a business deal falls apart, and he,  feeling agitated that all his efforts have gone down the drain, resorts to aggressive behaviour in front of all the guests .  He does not apologize to her till the end of the movie for hitting and disrespecting her. He keeps trying to find excuses for his behaviour and justifies it to her, trying  to make it seem like an everyday occurrence that should not be taken so seriously, and telling her to “move on”. As the movie progresses,  Amrita talks about how it was not just a single physical slap, but how  that one slap reminded her of all the emotional thappads she had been silently enduring from her husband for so long that she had now forgotten when she last felt respected and was truly happy. Something hit me that day when I watched Amrita  raise her voice against something and nobody else supported her for it. That is when I decided to gather courage myself as well and cut off ties with anyone who had been subjecting me to emotional slaps which I tended to always forget and move on. 

Another thing I realised  is, how homemakers hardly ever come in to the  limelight with their troubles. Everyone talks about how nobody can put a price on how much homemakers do for us, but nobody talks about the kind of behaviour they are subjected to almost every day. When we talk about workplaces and sexuality, we recognise the issues faced by people of different genders in shiny corporate buildings, but we tend to forget that for homemakers, their workplace is just that one singular place – the four walls of their homes. Unlike traditional workplaces, it lacks formal boundaries, rights, and protections. On most days, homemakers are buried under long to-do lists which are filled with things that keep our lives running. And even after putting their heart and soul into trying to make their families happy, they are often subjected to sheer disrespect and ridicule. And the worst part is, they are so trapped within these four walls that they do not even have an escape. When someone has a hard day at work and they want to hide away from the whole world, they cannot wait till the clock strikes five and they get to run back home. Where do homemakers go? 

Women’s role as the homemaker is shaped by patriarchal structures that define their primary value as caregivers and nurturers. The belief that women are ‘naturally’ suited for domestic labour is quite common. It is rooted in societal views of gender. This dynamic reflects a deeper form of discrimination based on gender and sexuality, where women’s roles are confined to serving the needs of others, often to the detriment of their own wellbeing. In a world where women are still struggling to breathe in peace or even feel an ounce of safety, where they are treated in the most inhumane ways and sometimes even killed in their own workplaces, it  makes me wonder how people can tend to have a popular opinion that maybe, just maybe, homemakers might not have to worry about something like this. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Even if a woman’s home is her workplace, it does not save her from the kind of violence and mistreatment that women are so easily subjected to in this world. I guess we are all stuck in a loop and we do not know how to get out of it, or we do not know if there even is an escape. We feel that we will and can raise our voices against injustice but the very next moment we fail to raise our voices in our own homes when we see the women in our families crying silently behind closed doors. 

Even today, women who defy traditional gender roles, or adopt different ways of owning and expressing their sexuality, are looked down upon and pressurised to fit into the shells of how society expects a woman to be. While men celebrate and are celebrated for their sexual freedom , women do not enjoy this same privilege. With the baggage of societal beauty standards, and the outside world dictating what is desirable and beautiful and what is not, it is difficult for women to feel good about their own selves, their own bodies. It feels as if every part of our body is always up for scrutiny and every other person has a free pass to comment about what they do not like or what we could improve in our physical appearance. Self-love is easy to preach about, but when one  keeps hearing people make  the same comments time and again,  it is natural for a person to start believing in them too.  One might even start losing one’s  own sense of self, and it is indeed difficult to constantly try and pick oneself  up from battles that  one did not even sign up for. 

I think about how women are sexualised at their places of work, how they are expected to change their whole attire for the ‘convenience’ of another gender. I also think about all those unheard voices and unseen tears that thousands of women shed in their homes because of the kind of discrimination and injustice they are subjected to, how they are expected to work long hours without any mercy simply because they belong to a certain gender. Stuck in the confines of their homes, they suffer silently in most cases. Women are made to believe that their lives are owned by the men in their lives. There have been so many times when I have had  a stronge urge to hold a woman  who I see suffering because of some man, and say out loud to her that her life belongs to only her and no one else. 

Women are fighting. Women are getting empowered. It has been a long struggle and now a lot of women are becoming more aware of their rights and how they do not at all deserve to be treated badly. Having said that, I also see instances wherein I lose hope in humanity and feel at a loss  for words. Be it heinous crimes against women, or people making ‘sexist jokes’ casually in any social setting, it all hurts to see and process. But women are trying to change the narrative. They are advocating for equal rights, safety at all places and times, and for a world where all sexual identities are given the respect and recognition that they so rightfully deserve. Films like Thappad serve as mirrors, reflecting not only the pain and injustice women endure but also the quiet courage it takes to reclaim their voices. Any act of resistance, however small it may be, be it in social settings, in our homes, or even in our minds, can create ripple effects and go a long way in starting difficult but essential conversations. Only then, maybe, we can say with a sigh of relief and certainty, that slowly but surely, the world will change for the better. 

Cover Image: Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash