"This is not about Mary Kom. The film. I promise!

"This is not about Mary Kom. The film. I promise! 

Though I wanted to say it, like it is. At the end of a melodramatic & thoroughly predictable climax in the Priyanka Chopra starer boxing biopic, the national anthem is played. But naturally. We stand up. It's date night, for Ma and me. Chinese dinner awaits. I keep telling her I urgently need to pee. We must leave.

Except, a real life brawl has broken out. A wrestling bout, like no other. One Indian couple who didn't stand up for the anthem vs. another Indian couple who grab them by the collar, screaming the most jarring Hindi abuses, reminding them of their Indianness, and how if Mary won the medal, and her son lived, and she made us so proud, how dare you 'motherch**' sit and watch the fun. You have a national right, kuttey!' The fight turns nasty.

More abuses are hurled. More Indian couples join in. Some the refree, some the good samaritan, some innocent bystanders, trapped in the same aisle. Some like me, with a rather bashful bladder. Bottles start flying. 'Chutiye,' the word used liberally. The women agitated. Almost Kom-ish, baring their teeth, their heavily done up eyes red with rage. After twenty minutes, the security is summoned. We manage to scurry out.

In the restaurant, after we have powdered our noses, we are just about settling down to a tangy prawn Tom Yum, when in walk in a group of Manipuri women. I recognize them from the movie-hall. There were a lot of Manipuri people, their faces glistening with a rare pride, probably hoping to feel a sense of inclusiveness in the damp darkness of a movie hall. The only kinds that is safe, for their women & children.

A group of young Punjabi boys are chomping away. They leech lustily, start singing the cheesiest songs, one of them even constantly calling the same waiter serving the ladies, addressing him as 'Mary had a littel lamb,' laughing hysterically. One of the women, stands up, at which point one of the boys whistle, and then, turning his face to his friend, say, 'oye yeh toh saali Mary wali aankhen dikha rahin hain...' to which his pimple-faced, turbaned, heavily chiseled friend smugly retorts, pointing his fork at the group, 'abbe Mary ke aankhen kahan the be?'

The rest of us squirm. Some shaking their shoulders. In disapproval. The manager pretends nothing has happened. Taking orders. Ordering his 'Chinese looking,' staff, possibly hired from the North East. One of them tries telling the boys to take it down a notch. To which he pushes him, retorting, 'yeh dekh Mary ka ek aur aashiq!'
I call the Manager. He avoids me. Ma is scared. She says she has read guys in Delhi carry guns, these days. Or they must be drunk, she alleges. Missing dad being there.

The girls quietly pay, and leave. Their jasmine tea and dumplings and salad untouched. The guys singing loudly, 'Hindi chini bhai bhai...'
It's another Saturday night, in the burgeoning national capital. Mary Kom, produced by Sanjay Bhansali (who in my view should stick to set designing!!), & directed by erstwhile set designer Omang Kumar (who's been proudly bragging how he never knew who Mary Kom was, before she won the World Championship, as a sign of his pea-brained reverence!!!) is probably a hit, by then, making it to the coveted 100 crore club. PC will sweep all awards, next year, and, the National Award, of course. The film surely our best bet for the prestigious Oscars, going forth.

A movie that represents a myopic and patriarchal view of a world champion's tumultuous journey, that is hardly about the State or the sporting stars it produces year, after, year, despite subsisting in a hostile environment of curfews and atrocities by our armed forces, with extreme poverty and a step-motherly attitude by our Government. Or Mary's struggle, in the broader sense. Except when she is breast-feeding her twins, her husband comparing her to a milk producing cow. Or falls in love. Or must bear to hear to news of her son going in for a heart surgery. A sad day. I say to myself.

Remembering how impotent we truly are as a nation. How twisted our jingoism is. Limited to standing up for a song and clapping. How easily Bollywood bullies us. And makes up so much of our so-called cultural bravado. When in real life, we can't even respect our women, in the most basic conditions. Despite our so-called education, plush mall culture, economic estrogen, when most of us probably don't even have a single Manupuri friend or know just where its on our geography map. When we still had to ride on the success rate of a Bollywood heroine, with limited histrionics, happy to brag about her muscle power, when we, hardly demonstrate enough, everyday...

Ma, tujhe salaam? Sorry, India. Come again...."

Credits: Sreemoyee Piu Kundu
Original Article:www.facebook.com/sreemoyee.kundu/posts/10152244624212751