Opinion Shubhra Gupta writes: ‘Girls will be Girls’, exploring sexuality with honesty
For filmmakers addressing Indian audiences still conflicted about sex and passion, any depiction of rawness can be a Herculean task — we may have moved past two swans necking, but we haven’t really crashed through the bars that imprison real teenagers, with their aches and aspirations, joys and fear
But — and this is where Shuchi Talati’s acutely-observed debut feature Girls Will Be Girls veers away from the way teens have been largely depicted in mainstream Bollywood — she is sexually aware, curious about her body, and has no qualms in acknowledging it. (File Photo) 
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Coming of age is one of the most overused phrases attached to films featuring teenagers. It is perhaps the toughest subject to deal with in the conservative Indian context. Because a teenager, by definition, is an authority-averse bundle of confusing contradictions: Yo-yoing between attention-seeking and wanting to disappear, knowing everything and nothing, feeling loved and hated, all gangly limbs, embarrassing acne rashes, uncontrolled growth spurts.
For filmmakers addressing Indian audiences still conflicted about sex and passion, any depiction of rawness can be a Herculean task — we may have moved past two swans necking, but we haven’t really crashed through the bars that imprison real teenagers, with their aches and aspirations, joys and fears. Sixteen-year-old Mira is an ace student at her co-ed boarding school. She revels in being the best, and naturally is a teacher’s pet. But — and this is where Shuchi Talati’s acutely-observed debut feature Girls Will Be Girls veers away from the way teens have been largely depicted in mainstream Bollywood — she is sexually aware, curious about her body, and has no qualms in acknowledging it. At the recently-concluded Sundance Film Festival, the film won the Audience Award, and a special jury nod for lead actor Preeti Panigrahi, making it a perfect “Winter of ’24” for thrilled producers Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal.
Watching Mira, neat and contained on the outside and roiling with feelings inside, trying to make sense of the tumult, is like experiencing what it is like to be a 16-year-old. How does it feel to be kissed on the inside of a wrist? Close your eyes and imagine the very first time a touch so intimate happened to you. Or, wait, did it happen to you at all? The scene, potent and powerful in its fleetingness, opens up the door of possibilities, and you can imagine the unease of the adults who’ve never gone down that path, to expose their progeny to what they would automatically term “shameless”.
Imagine what would Mummy and Daddy and Bua and Mausi and Dada and Dadi have to say to such brazen behaviour? How could filmmakers write a character like Mira’s and expect to get away with it, in a society where the mingling of the opposite sexes has still not been normalised in so many parts of the country?
Mira’s attraction for Sri, a new worldly-wise classmate, is the tipping point in the little domestic unit she creates with her mother, Anila, who appears to have raised Mira on her own, the husband a largely absent figure. You understand Mira’s newly-minted desires easily; witnessing Anila’s longing for intimacy which is as strong as her sense of deprivation, is queasier. It also becomes, conversely, the most powerful binding force between the mother and daughter.
Sri calling Anila by her first name, and not the generic “aunty”, his ease at being around the older woman, and her being aware of this young man for himself and not just as Mira’s “friend”, makes Anila one of the most interesting characters I’ve encountered recently in the movies. She should get her own movie. That coming of age of her daughter is as much hers, in which she sees the things that she missed out on, physically and emotionally: Panigrahi as Mira, Kani Kusruti as Anila, and Kesav Binoy Kiron as Sri, make a terrific trio.
Hindi cinema has always been awash with solah-satrah baras ke heroes and heroines, but they’ve almost always been sketched from the outside because the inside is too messy, too raw: Even those filmmakers who are interested in exploring these crevices are stymied by our puritanical attitudes. We have been made used to nauseatingly coy Bollywood teens, continually objectified and fetishised. The camera roams around curves and bulges, and thrusts and heaves, making us voyeurs rather than participants. Which is why Talati’s gaze, warm, empathetic, knowing, is such a win — she knows what it is like; she asks us to come along, and feel for her characters.
The coming-of-age perch up until now has been occupied by Vikramaditya Motwane’s 2010 Udaan. Rajat Barmecha’s 17-year-old Rohan also attends a boarding school in the hills. His strong artistic bent is scotched by Ronit Roy’s memorably-played monster father who has never had a chance to grow up himself — patriarchy has damaged both. I loved Udaan when I first saw it, and still do, but I missed getting a glimpse of the natural sexual urges that go with the terrain, and the simmering hormonal stew a bunch of young men can turn into.
Here, Mira takes on the mantle of the all-round real girl. If boys will be boys, well then, girls can be girls, too.
shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com
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