Mrs Made Me Realise I Owe An Apology To My Mother

It was a mundane Sunday, 20 minutes into the movie with tears rolling down my cheeks. I called my mother. In a dysphonic tone, I said, "Hello Maa, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry." I’m sorry for judging your endless endeavours in the kitchen. I’m sorry for not standing up when Dad made snide remarks about your cooking. I’m sorry for expecting you to cook like a Michelin-star chef. Those scorching summers when the entire family would not even step out of their air-conditioned rooms while you fed us quadridaily with your clothes drenched in sweat.

Mrs Made Me Realise I Owed An Apology To My Mother

Maa, your identity is not based on how tender the chicken tastes, how round the chapatis rotate, or how kadak the chai tastes. Those oil-stained tiles of the kitchen have sucked the life out of you. The knives have certainly chopped your wings. Every morning Dad goes through the newspapers worrying about the world affairs while you go through the fridge.

The kitchen is meant to cook and not captivate. The food is meant to be fed and not judged. Your hands are meant to be kissed, Maa. You remember all our favorite dishes, but who remembers yours? All these years you’ve adjusted your lives and dislikes accordingly.

The family gets together when men order “Ek Chai aur ho jaye” to the casual jokes spouses make. Dear Husbands, there are other ways to sound funny. As a child, I laughed off such jokes too. The movie, Mrs., has a scene when Richa, the lead, jokes about her husband not helping her, taken horribly by the husband. The joke automatically harmed his reputation, while throughout the movie he kept on making jokes about his wife.

The parties and dinners where the husband decides the menu and the wife toils for hours to get that one compliment. To the nights when ‘Men take over the kitchen to help us,’ the audacity to cook once a year with help and question women cooking for the whole year.

YOU DON’T HELP YOUR MOTHER IN THE KITCHEN; YOU CONTRIBUTE.

The scene where she picks out the leftovers from the sink. I’ve seen my mother doing that for years without complaining. I asked my mother, ‘Kaise kar leti ho ye sab? It’s gross,’ to which she simply said, “Acha to nahi lagta par adat padd gayi hai.”

Just like Richa, who initially questions her mother-in-law that there’s help and she’ll do it, to the scene where she picks out trash from the sink. The leaking pipeline scene is a symbol of how trivial women's problems are taken in a household. There’s a stark contrast when the man washes his hands with soap every time he comes back from the hospital workplace while the wife has her feet drenched in drain water every day.

Other scenes feature the mother-in-law eating her husband's leftovers, waking up before her husband, taking out his chappal so that he doesn’t have to bend, and using a silbatta instead of a grinder. These are small yet powerful instances where we’ve subjugated ourselves in day-to-day lives. Women put other women down in the character of Bua.

Mrs. was not your typical feminist saga. In fact, the lead barely had any powerful dialogues except the part where she said, “Beti kabhi beta nahi ban sakti.”. Why don't we teach our kids household duties while growing up?

To me it wasn’t a movie; it was a painful journal of watching my mother and all the women around me serving to the ‘whims and fancies of the society.’ It is a subtle film with a powerful message.

Lastly, the movie not just demands an apology but also a hope to change for the better. A hope where movies like Mrs. aren't needed to awaken.

Views expressed by the author are their own