Thappad: No mere slap

Since "Thappad" is now on Amazon Prime, got down to watching it. So, had already built my own pre-viewing impressions, basis reviews and tweets I had seen earlier and the tons of other media coverage the movie received.

Very well crafted and directed by Anubhav Sinha - the plot explores a whole set of people around the protagonist - men and women who touch her life, and that makes it all the more real and compelling.

Tapsee Pannu essays the role of chirpy Amrita, (Ammu as she is fondly called), who is content to be a homemaker to a very ambitious, successful Vikram, who is on the verge of a big promotion that would take him to London, wife in tow. Ammu's set upper middle class Delhi life comes crashing apart when the loving Vikram loses his cool over last minute office politics during a celebratory house party - and in misdirected rage, ends up delivering a thunderous slap on his wife's face, in full view of friends and family. That is it. The story begins from here. A shocked Ammu begins to question the marriage and her emotional investment of many years.

The film raises pertinent questions:

Could a mere slap become the cause for a stable marriage to end? Was Amrita making too big a deal about it? Shouldn't she just accept this as part of a relationship and move on?

To be honest, I had the same feeling persisting in my head throughout the film - but something was adding up in Amrita's favor all along. And that was, her husband's abject lack of remorse post the incident. Vikram is certainly not a bad guy - but his blissfully ignoring her anguish over the tingling public slap, and continued self absorption over the office politics and his own frustration - that is the underlying premise of "Thappad". It is not about domestic violence at all - but, about entitlement and taking things for granted. And that certainly adds up to the protagonist losing love and respect for her husband - the man around whom her life revolved for several years. Had he apologized even once with feeling, Amrita would have had no reason to question her marriage so much - forgiveness would have come in early and there would have been no story to talk about, but the apology does come, but towards the end, when the marriage is on its death bed.

It would be good for viewers to watch the movie, divorced of Tapsee Pannu's political beliefs etc - I saw a lot of tweets lambasting her as a liberal, anti-this-that, and a woman who advocates divorce through this movie. To give her the benefit of doubt, there is no divorce advocacy, per se - she has delivered a nuanced performance alongside the rest of the supporting cast.

I would recommend - watch this as a movie and honestly evaluate the situation in the reverse. If it were Vikram to be slapped in a fit of misdirected rage by Ammu, let us accept that she would have been branded as a woman with "a fiery temper and behavioral and anger issues". There would have been no justification for this unimaginable behavior at all. How could someone afford to slap her husband, even accidentally? Not too many of us, not even women,would accept it too well, and would hasten to brand the woman, as "hasty, nasty and full of attitude". I suspect a reverse "Thappad" script would have delved deep into the guilt conscience of the woman over her one-time act, more than anything else. That too, is the underlying message - our conditioning of several generations that can subconsciously accept some behaviors and not others.

In all, "Thappad" sends out a signal that questions these mindsets - there is no room for disrespect - of either gender. No one takes anyone for granted, even in a loving relationship. Accept, apologize or even better, do not commit an act you would be ashamed of, later.