Geeli Pucchi: How It Changed Things For Women

Geeli Pucchi is a short film in the Hindi anthology Ajeeb Dastaan. Ajeeb Dastaan itself is the collection of four small stories of various women stuck at different conflict points in their own lives. Among all the four stories put up in the anthology, Geeli Pucchi made a mark. It is  directed by Neeraj Ghaywan.

Ghaywan has been associated with many hit and critically acclaimed movies and short films like Juice starring Shefali Shah, Masaan starring Vicky Kaushal, Richa Chadha, Shweta Tripathi and Gangs of Wasseypur starring Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddique, Huma Qureshi among others.

Geeli Pucchi stars Konkona Sen Sharma and Aditi Rao Hydari who play the role of Bharti Mandal and Priya Sharma respectively.

Why We Love Geeli Pucchi?

The role of two women juggling their way out in their struggle for the desired life has been appropriately pointed by the director. Priya Sharma is a married woman who is desiring for a child with her husband. However, due to the absence of privacy at her home and denial of her sexuality, she is not comfortable enough making love to him.

Bharti is a working apprentice in the factory, who is very hardworking and deserves to be on a top-notch profile based on her degree and marks, but could not make it - as she belongs to a backward community. When Priya joins the same office as Bharti, two complex narratives weave into one, highlighting the evils and discrimination faced by women. It makes us fall in love with the storyline.

Acceptance of  sexuality

Bharti is quite accepting of the fact that she has an inclination towards women and she did not have a great past experience in her relationships, as the girl she loved left her. However, Priya, the bubbly, happy going woman could not accept the fact, that she is married and still is attracted towards women. She questions Bharti about not loving her husband enough: "Kya mujhme koi defect hai?"

Being with Bharti makes Priya ecstatic and she becomes quite accommodative of each other's friendship that reminds her of her college friend. However, at the end, also puts to light the fact, that no matter how accepting you are - of your sexuality, the society does not accept it, and you need to keep hiding the so-called ugly truth for fear of not fitting in as per the acceptable parameters.

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Caste Discrimination

While Priya Sharma is shown to belong to a privileged section of the society, Bharti Mandal belongs to the backward caste. Priya gets every opportunity with ease and Mandal cannot even make it to the basic data entry operator job in the office despite all the qualifications due to the prejudiced outlook of her boss. It gets easier for Priya due to her fair complexion and "surname" to grab every opportunity presented to her.

On getting angry with the discrimination meted out to her, one of the old factory workers tries to pacify Bharti and tells her, "We are Dalits. Table kursi par khana milega, table kursi wali naukri nahi. Waha tak pahuchte hue kahi tum jali pari naa milo"

Bharti puts an example for women in the world, who may be deprived of their opportunity, but need to question the people around them "why the discrimination?". Ghaywan's direction strongly puts cases of caste discrimination in workplaces through the story.

You don't need to fit the definition of conventional woman-

Priya is shown to be a household woman, who is trying to earn a living and still struggles to find respect and her voice in the family, Bharti Mandal does all the work of machinery and moving big metal containers that are typical to men in society.

She even keeps fighting for her rights while being acceptive of the fact that she will not get access to a separate washroom (she is a lone female worker in the factory), or a changing room and fights with men at the workplace to get her genuine rights. However, she is taken aback, when her colleague Priya explains to her why she won't be joining her in the dining room- "ajib ajib log hote hai and badboo aati hai".

Again, an example of a typical Ghaywan scene like his previous works, where tries to project the harsh reality from a plain simple yet striking dialogue.

You don't need to fit the definition of conventional woman-

While Priya is shown to be a household woman, who is trying to earn a living and still struggles to find respect and her own voice in the family, Bharti Mandal does all the work of machinery and moving big metal containers that are typical to men in the society.

She even keeps fighting for her own rights while being acceptive of the fact that she will not get access to separate washroom (she is lone female worker in factory), or a changing room and fights with men at workplace to get her genuine rights. However, she is taken aback, when her colleague Priya explains her why she won't be joining her in the dining room- "ajib ajib log hote hai and badboo aati hai".

Again, an example of typical Ghaywan scene like his previous works, where tries to project the harsh reality from a plain simple yet striking dialogue.

Societal Reality

While Priya tries to make friends with Bharti, but as soon as she knows her caste, she tries to distance herself from her and her family downplays her and keeps reminding her that she should befriend people of equal status.

Both the woman are shown to be like all most of women in the society- empathetic, accommodative but lacks assertiveness and courage to stand for themselves. The story hits the right chord by giving examples of Priya and Bharti, the contrasting characters, and leaves for the women viewing this movie-an open ended decision of who they choose to be in life.

"It’s very rare to come across a film that doesn’t have these issues… Geeli Pucchi to some extent I was lucky"-  Watch the interview of Konkona Sen Sharma with SheThePeople ">here.

The views expressed are the author's own.