Movie Review of Budd (Awakening)

“Budh”, a short film by Prashant Ingole, a recipient of various short film award selections, focuses on women empowerment. The movie throws light on women, who are otherwise worlds apart, but share a common life when seen through the lens of injustice and gender prejudice. The three prominent categories of women portrayed in the film are found to hail from different socio-economic, cultural and educational backgrounds. But there is a common thread of patriarchal subjugation and patterned oppression that neatly runs through their lives irrespective of their class, caste and other differences.

The youngest girl among the protagonists was Yvonne, from a city, leading a modern, relatively liberal and upscale life. She, being the youngest of all protagonists, realizes her worth, value of choice and decisions much before the other protagonists in the film. Her acceptance of the existence of male supremacy and recognition of the harm it causes to the attitude towards a woman led her to pave a path for apprehending her own decision without caring for others judgment. Yvonne was betrayed by her boyfriend, a male chauvinist who used to often demean women’s feelings and choices. She was an unmarried woman, which made her free enough to make her own choices, as she was not restrained by the institution of marriage which values just the male members of the family.This was evident when she spoke out about wanting to stay away from her boyfriend,when she gets to know he was disloyal towards her.

Another protagonist is a Muslim house wife,Zainab from a small town. This character of the film was educated, but had to submit herself to the expectations society has from an ideal wife. She has been shown in the movie as a well-educated female character, who has completed her course in fashion designing but was not willing to be a financially independent woman. In the pursuit of being a loving and ideal wife she decided to be a homemaker and not to work. But her decision was never respected in the family for whom she was doing her best to make them happy. It has been wonderfully shown in the movie again and again that women also have a major role to play in promoting and supporting patriarchy. The movie has not neglected the fact that there are men too, who are willing to support women in their endeavors. It can be seen from the way Zainab’s father gave her the courage to stand up for herself again and helped her recognize her capabilities. In this instance, her father encouraged her to put her education to good use. Whereas her mother criticized her and further advised her to be a silent listener, which was appreciated in their community. Even today, in many communities if a woman wants to work after marriage, she needs her husband’s and in-law’s permission to do so. Zainab’s husband often scolds and taunts her for being a housewife and not being able to generate income for the family. He completely ignores the fact that Zainab was doing everything to make him happy,and undervaluing the efforts she puts into domestic chores. His attitude towards Zainab is completely different from his attitude towards his mother. He understands the emotions of his mother towards him when she calls to know whether he was having food on time.The same act of Zainab, his wife, is perceived as a disturbance by him. These are the characteristics of a typical male chauvinist who considers women as inferior. Unpaid household work is highly neglected and disrespected, especially in India and it is often taken as “no work” by men in society. According to the Census in 2011, people engaged in household duties have been treated as non-workers, even when 159.9 million women stated that “household work” was their main occupation. In a report, the International Monetary Fund also suggested that if women’s participation in the economy was raised to that of men, then India could grow its GDP by 27 per cent. The proportion of “unpaid work per day is far higher for women than men globally, while in case of India on average 66 per cent of women’s work is unpaid,” says the WEF. In India, women spend 297 min. and men spend only 31 min. in unpaid domestic work (Addati et. al., 2018). This shows the extent of gender segregation in unpaid domestic duties in India. When Zainab was not earning, her husband was disappointed with her, but when she started earning, her husband was not happy with the type of work she chose to do. So, a home maker not only needs permission to work but also the type of job she chooses has to be decided by her husband.

The other protagonist in the movie is Laxmi who is a widow, a mother to a girl child and being a woman herself, she is leading a miserable life in her husband’s family after his death. She is the one who does household chores, looks after the child and takes care of everyone without having anyone to share her workload. One more highlighting point from the movie is that it throws light on the perception of people on trans men who are considered dirty by even women,who are otherwise the suppressed and inferior gender. In one of the scenes, Laxmi can be seen using the term, “Kinnar”, just to describe the shameful and dirty acts of her brother in law. Another important point worth noting is decision making power of Indian rural women depends on the sex of their children. Here it was seen that availing the facilities of a govt scheme requires family permission and that permission is readily given to women who have given birth to a son. It was evident from the scene where Laxmi mentions her inability to take advantage of a government scheme as she is the mother of a girl child when her friend was allowed to do so. This reflects the difference in the kind of freedom given to them just because of being a mother to a girl child. In Indian society, giving birth to a son is considered “highly prestigious” and mothers of sons are believed to enjoy special status in society. Therefore, the existence of social evil is also one of the reasons that many women are not even allowed to take advantage of state sponsored programmes. In the movie, one can see the negligence faced by the little girl child while crying for food continuously. There was nobody to pacify the child even when all the members of the family were sitting idle at home. It has been vividly shown in the movie that belonging to a particular gender decides your privilege, value and accessibility to resources. Merely being a woman or bearing female children snatches your freedom and basic rights. . There is a disturbing social pattern continuing for decades which shows consistent suppression of the feminine voice of dissent.

Another interesting part of the film is the depiction of male characters as not the only ones to be oppressive towards women, but it was also the elder women in the family who inflict the same oppressive behavior towards younger women. Thus, women can also be seen as caretakers of protecting patriarchal norms and values. The elder women suffered the same ordeal when they were young, which they then inflicted upon the younger generation of females. As seen in the first story, the mother in law was very oppressive towards Laxmi (daughter in law) and supportive of her son’s rude behavior towards Laxmi. The mother in law is shown as very abusive and the brother in law as the authoritarian of the family with no work other than beating, abusing and using Laxmi (widow) for his sexual pleasure in front of his wife. One can see the blaming nature of society towards women when she is unable to give birth without realizing the fact that the impotency of a man can also be a reason behind it. The wife of the brother in law was labeled as useless and a sufferer more than Laxmi, as she’s unable to bear children. The doubt of his impotency arises when it is seen in the movie that even after having forced sex many times with the main protagonist Laxmi, she was not pregnant. But, people in the story never speak about the possible impotency of the man and continue to blame Laxmi for every misfortune.

Thus, from the stories of two married protagonists it can be understood that a housewife is widely perceived as a bonded slave or purchased property who must not be allowed to exercise her will. Although, the film begins by depicting the deplorable condition of women across classes, castes,and religion as victims of a series of discriminations, but it ends on a very optimistic note where the battered, tortured, oppressed and violated women take the reigns of their shared destiny in their own hands. They decide to raise their voice against the injustice meted out to them. The movie has portrayed a very crucial social message of women standing up for themselves and taking charge of their own lives. When the film nears its close, it shows the climactic hope, catharsis of their souls, a path to life-time relief from the hellish experiences of silent torment for ages. However, the film could have thrown some light on the aftermath of the decisions taken by protagonists as it would have helped the viewers to connect to reality and resonate with the happening after that even if it were unfavourable. In most of the cases, it is not easy for women to raise their voice just because of the fear of their insecure and helpless future. Therefore, just filling a hope to raise a voice will leave them in an unreal world of uncertainty. The success of the film “Budh” (The Awakening) lies in the fact that it ends with high optimism for women empowerment.

Written by Sabna E S, Kaushik Chowdhury and Namrata Karamchandani under the Gender, Sexuality and Violence course by Rangeen Khidki.

Sabna is a PhD research scholar at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Her interest areas of research are menstruation and gender issues. She is a leading an independent body, Project Sakhi Saheli, which aims to create a period positive society by initiating a discourse on menstruation and combating period poverty by promoting sustainable methods of managing menstrual days.

Kaushik is currently a PhD Research Scholar at Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur. He is deeply moved by the gender imbalance and hierarchical power structures in the society . He is saddened by the patterned persecution of the LGBTQI+ community. He aspires to be a LGBT rights activist and a legal academician in days to come.

Namrata Karamchandani is the Co-founder of Anahat For Change Foundation. She is an Urban & Regional Planner by profession and has done several social research projects since the last 10 years.