Call her a fatalist or a determinist but Alankrita Shrivastava thinks that, like human beings, every film also has its own destiny. So, her sophomore effort, Lipstick Under My Burkha , would have been yet another small independent film by a young woman filmmaker; about four ordinary, small town, working class women and their attempts to live within overwhelming societal claustrophobia; were it not for the added significance thrust upon it by none other than the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) itself.
In denying it certification initially, not only did the board reveal its lack of basic skills in the English language, but its objections to the “lady oriented”, “fantasy above life” film and its “contagious sexual scenes” has only stoked the curiosity for it over the past few months.
“The life of the film would have been very different,” Shrivastava says as she looks back at how the initial ban on it changed the course of its journey. “Such a small film became a threat to the patriarchal order!” a fact she still can’t get over. So, in retrospect, do Pahlaj Nihalani and co. seem like a blessing in disguise? She doesn’t think so. What’s more interesting for her is how seamlessly the reel and real rebellion seem to have come together. “I was struck by the parallel. The film itself has become like one of the characters within it,” she says. It has been about being told that you don’t have a right to exist and about breaking free from such shackles—as much for the film as for the four protagonists within it.
The CBFC is no stranger to Shrivastava. She’s run-in with the board with her first film, Turning 30 , as well. There were objections raised back then on showing a single woman having sex, and the film was eventually given an ‘A’ certificate. Looking back Shrivastava remembers being stressed, but not miserable at the initial objections. It was the attitude of the revising committee that came as a jolt, something she wasn’t expecting it at all. “I felt discriminated against. The way they make a filmmaker feel like a criminal, don’t allow a conversation… It fired my determination. It was a wake up call. The feeling for the film changed,” she says.
A relentless fight
She herself had to don the additional mantle of a crusader. There was no option but to fight, even though it involved investing time, energy and emotions. “I was intent that whatever it takes the film will have to release,” she says of the rising responsibility she felt towards her second born. Meanwhile, the awards it amassed internationally at various festivals only helped this cause.
And the entire experience, however challenging, helped her gain a larger perspective on life—that your rights, ultimately, are all only on paper; you have to fight to claim them. It took her almost six months—from the end of December last year, when she applied for certification to June 3, when she eventually got the crucial piece of paper after the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) overruled the CBFC ruling.
The flipside of it is how CBFC has also unwittingly done wonders for the film’s marketing. It has inspired the team to come up with the most irreverent new poster and trailer, quite literally showing the middle finger to CBFC and patriarchy at large. You can see the remnants of the media strategy—with words like gender, discrimination, patriarchy—on the white board of the conference room while you wait for Shrivastava. Later she explains: “Through the trailer we definitely wanted to bring out the fact that the film had to fight so much to be seen. We have worked on the very terms and phrases used by the CBFC in denying us the certificate. The poster, however, is more about defiance, appeals to the young with the idea of a colourful rebellion against patriarchy.”
The trailer also seems to promise a lot of sex, you ask Srivastava in jest. “I still think there is not enough of sex in it, there could be still some more,” she shoots back. According to her, sex in Lipstick… is “real”, not sanitised or romanticised; it could be uncomfortable and disturbing but not titillating or exploitative at all. “There is no nudity, not even a cleavage shot,” she says.
On a more serious note she goes on to talk about how the body and sexuality is the first site of conflict for a woman—when it comes to sex and desire, even when it comes to seemingly simple matters like what to wear. “I have looked at that idea of a female body but in a much lighter vein, even though it may seem like this crusader film now,” she says.
Lipstick… is about the secret lives of four women. Shrivastava thinks it holds true for most. “What you see is not all that there is to them. They also have a subversive existence,” she says. It is also about breaking free, at times through their covert desires and fantasies. The idea of freedom is something the filmmaker finds herself constantly contending with: “There are no external restrictions but many a times you don’t feel free internally. There is that feeling that you don’t have it in you. Rather than exploring it through a familiar world I decided to do it through a world where there are external restrictions as well.” For her personally there has been a constant negotiation within to seek out that missing openness, candour and sense of abandon. The good thing is that quest for autonomy has kept getting better with time. “Every year I think I am at a better place than before,” she says.
Choosing the indie
The free-flowing conversation shifts gears to lack of self worth, inadequacy and esteem insinuated in women, on how they are forced to feel shame and guilt for no obvious reason. “With men, it’s all about entitlement while women are often made to feel apologetic even about their achievements. Society expects them to be happy with small things. People have even wondered if I am in to indies because I can’t think big,” says Shrivastava.
But for her, staying small is a conscious choice. For someone who grew up in a liberal, progressive, bureaucrat family with many positive female influences all around her, she doesn’t feel encumbered telling stories about women. They come naturally to her. “I am pretty clear about what I am interested in. It’s not as though it is a cross I have to bear. I just find women’s stories more interesting. I am preoccupied with them as a filmmaker right now. There are anyhow enough stories about men,” she says.
Perhaps it was to do with studying in all-girls school and college—Welhams, Dehradun and Lady Shri Ram, New Delhi—and later at the Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. “It made my feminist politics very clear very early on,” she says.
She feels that these thoughts and politics were present in her not-so-celebrated debut too but got dwarfed by the relative tackiness of telling. The craft and detailing have improved in the second outing. “It was difficult to find my voice [back then]. I was using the tools of the mainstream films I had grown up on even though my trope was very different. The unlearning had not happened.”
The continuing engagement with and perpetuation of the feminist politics is important for her because that space almost doesn’t exist in popular culture. Representations of women are controlled and conditioned by the mainstream. Society feeds into popular culture which, in turn, reinforces the stereotypes of women that society is comfortable with.
No wonder the most important thing for Shrivastava is that the film has initiated debates like never before—about women and cinema, about female sexuality and gaze, about the objectification of women. Even before the release; without people having seen the film. “So many conversations that were required started happening. Something more meaningful and value-creating emerged from the film being banned.” In hindsight Shrivastava would prefer to see the bright side of the dark times.
