Matrubhoomi

We witnessed the lives of rich and famous in Madhur Bhandarkar's 'Page 3' early this year, and it didn't take time for us to pass a judgment that 'high society stinks'. We scoffed at the characters, hated them and framed opinions.

Circa July 2005 and an even bitter truth stands naked right on your face in the shape of writer-director Manish Jha's 'Matrubhoomi - A Nation Without Women'! If 'Page 3' was a dark reality then 'Matrubhoomi' is so stark that it shakes your soul inside out.

A futuristic tale set in the rural North Indian belt, 'Matrubhoomi' depicts a depressing situation where there are no females left; young or old. Prime reason is female infanticide in today's scenario where girls are either killed after their birth or aborted. Result? Near to negligible female population that leads to immense frustration amongst male gender. Sexually deprived, backward and uneducated, men are shown using all possible forms to realize sexual gratification, be it watching pornographic movies under a hatched roof, homosexuality and worse - even bestiality.

Cards are drawn on the table in the very first scene [from present times] where local 'dai-maas' assist a woman in her delivery in as impassionate and unsympathetic manner as possible. With a razor blade and a rusty scissor in hand, they carry their routine job only to break the "bad news" to men about a girl being born. Girl child is pronto drowned in a vessel full of milk with no sight of remorse or regret whatsoever.

Cut to the future where a family of 5 unmarried men headed by their father [Sudhir Pandey] is going through frustrating times due to lack of a suitable bride. Local priest [Piyush Mishra], who is busy scheming, drinking 'sharbats' and looking for suitable girls helps them out by coming across a sole girl left in the entire neighborhood. She is Kalki [Tulip Joshi], who has been hidden by her poor father as he is afraid that exposing her to men would prove to be catastrophic for her. Or was he waiting to get the best deal possible? Because as soon as the priest announces her to be '100% ladki in wajib daam' [100% girl on a good price] to Pandey and then strikes a deal Rs. 5 lakh, his eyes light up. He doesn't feel a wee bit sorry for her only girl and marries her off to all the five brothers, hence referring to the mythological tale of Draupadi and Pandavas.

Only in this case, the Pandavas [except for the youngest - Sushant Singh] are least humane and treat her just as an object to be used for satisfying their lust. To make matters worst, father Pandey wants his share of the pie and form hereon one witnesses a stomach crunching series of rape, mental and physical abuse of Kalki. There are no gray, but only black characters in the entire setup as none of the men even speak to their wife for a single moment and just reach her bed at an appointment as fixed on a calendar.

Some respite comes for Kalki with Sushant being the only person who genuinely cares for her, both mentally but physically. But this too is short lived as his entire family gets jealous and turns against him, hence resulting in his killing. Kalki's world falls apart and her only support is the child servant Raghu [Vinamra Pancharia] who helps her attempt at escaping. This fails with Raghu getting killed and what follows next is the worst ever brutality that could have ever been shown in a Hindi film.
She is shackled in a cowshed, raped day and night by the entire family with no food, water or air. Raghu's relative Aditya Srivastava, who belongs to a lower caste, instigates his clan to seek revenge, which simply means abusing Kalki. Kalki turns pregnant and now everyone from her father-in-law to her husbands to the lower cast men who raped her claiming paternity, as it is a symbol of being 'manly'! Double standards never fail to prevail as inspite of history behind them they still want a boy child.

Movie ends with Kalki delivering a baby girl with a caste war happening in the background that takes up everyone's lives. Movie doesn't provide any solution but promises a glimmer of hope to stop the nonsensical killings of girl child, lest a situation as depicted in the movie truly arises.

Jha understands what he wants to present to the world and never falls into the trap of coming with anything that would take away from his message. He teams up with courageous trio of Patrick Sobelman, Nicolas Blanc and Punkej Kharabanda, who produce this hard hitting movie that succeeds in raising numerous questions. Presented by Boney Kapoor and Sridevi Kapoor, 'Matrubhoomi' is not designed as an entertainer that one would walk into a theatre to loose his worries. Instead what it does is provoke one's thoughts and force him to change the way he thinks, lives and acts.

No one should have any complains whatsoever regarding the movie being grim, dark and depressing - because this is what Jha intended to achieve. The gory scenes in the movie were never meant to titillate [in fact it would require a rather corrupt mind to even feel any sort of titillation in a subject like this] and the proceedings were required to be haunting. Even the rape/physical abuse scenes are indicative rather than graphical hence saving the viewer from a complete collapse due to hammer strong execution by Jha.

Editing by Shirish Kundur and Ashmit Kundur is good. Salim Suleman prove that even in a theme like this, they can come up with an impressive background score. Venu Gopal's cinematography has no pretensions of providing any relief in the proceedings with a dark [yet sharp] look throughout.

Dialogues are authentic and from real life. Script restricts itself to approximately 100 minutes execution and maintains a linear flow with shocking moments every 10 minutes. In fact last 20-30 minutes just push you to a corner with no respite at all where the screenplay doesn't allow one to blink his eyes. You look at the proceedings with mouth open in horror and only feel relieved when the baby girl is born.

Performances are consistently noteworthy from each of the artists with everyone from Sudhir Pandey, Tulip Joshi, Piyush Mishra, Sushant Singh, Aditya Srivastava to the child artists Vinamra and Amin Gazi [Lagaan, Hungama, Tauba Tauba] fitting the bill. Though Tulip is shown as a weak and meek character throughout the movie with negligible dialogues to speak, she creates immense impact with her face and especially the body language. One wonders what would be the mood at the sets of the movie with none of the actors having any respite in front of the camera?

Viewers in India have always complained of lack of anything 'different'. Well, you want to see something different then go watch 'Matrubhhomi'. A movie that would be acclaimed for decades to come for the issue it raises, even if it manages to save a few thousand girl babies from getting killed, it would be worth an effort for its makers. 'Matrubhoomi' deserves to be seen by like minded people across the globe.