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I examine the portrayal of women in Hindi cinema ‘Parched’ in terms of the vectors of gender, class and sexuality.2 I claim that since its inception in 1913 Hindi cinema has portrayed women as submissive in films after films within the domain of patriarchal socio-cultural narratives3, women struggling to break the glass ceiling of patriarchal and stereotypical ideologies of class and sexuality which denied their individuality. These stereotypes of the ideal mother, sacrificing wife, obedient sister, dependent daughter, immoral prostitutes, occur in the early phase of Hindi cinema and gave women slight importance.
I offer an analysis of the representation of power and abuse in Parched (2015) directed by Leena Yadav. Parched is a story of four women living in a village in Gujarat or Rajasthan, India. The deserted village and the society suffer from social and patriarchal practices such as child marriage, marital rape, dowry and domestic violence. Four women boldly talk about men, sex and life as they struggle with their own personal wars against patriarchal society. The film challenges the very notion of what it means to be a woman in a rural setting of India, as well as exploring different variations of womanhood.
Traditionally Bollywood cinema narratives offer a representation of two kinds of women: first, ordinary woman whose options have been excluded by institutions like marriage. Female characters are defined by their limitation rather than their aspirations. The second kind is ordinary woman becoming extraordinary where women rise through their pain expressed in a directorial sense of sympathy and style. This piece advocates treatment of women in cinema and the notion of the portrayal of women in films, articulating that how far Parched goes in asserting independence and freedom for women.
To explore this further, I will discuss the two key concepts. The first one is the introspection of the space created for the desire of freedom by the characters of Parched whic