“Where the walls are not the limits, but the protective power;
Where the ribbon is Beauty’s strangling weapon;
Where the color of her lips does not attract, but drives away the Beast;
Where the nails with all their moles, notches and scars the bad flesh and dump it in the garbage of sins;
Where the drink does not shine with sensual nuances, but washes the mind Social;
Where the color drives away my fear; I would love to bleed PINK.”
‘Pink’ is a female color, and there is no logical reasoning behind it, except for other scholastic information authorized by our society; in fact, children who wear ‘Pink’ are a stigma; tarnishes his masculinity. The nuance that embellishes the roses and marks the meat as fresh; the one that sweetens cotton candy and bubbles the blood of the scapegoat, becomes one more metaphor for effeminate qualities, thanks to our well-versed and extremely intellectual society.
The ambiguity of ideas related to Pink has been well narrated in a stage version by Shoojit Sircar and Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury. The story is quite simple and predictable; revolves around three working women of the present time, who share a rented flat, free from personal and social prejudices, in short, with all the characteristics of the so-called ‘extroverted and inflexible’ women rather than independent and individualistic women of the society. In fact, they get into trouble with some wealthy and influential chauvinistic guys and thus an episode of sexual abuse follows with an elaborate trial session (which is the real part of the plot), of course, of the girls, not from the boys.
The girls file a complaint and in return are forced to stand on deck with conflicting charges against them. Does the idea sound familiar to you? Yes, indeed it is; we have faced such raw and realistic court sessions with women, in more serious situations like Rituparno Ghosh’s Dahan (1997), BR Chopra’s Insaaf Ka Tarazu (1980), Tapan Sinha’s Adalat O Ekti Meye (1982), and yet forget the real story of Suzette Jordan, victim of the Park Street incident in 2012. The fictions mentioned, as well as the real event, draw a verisimilitude of ideas, where the victim herself was asked to testify of her character, in the room medical examination, at the police station and finally in court. Rather, the movie showed what its trailer showed, unlike movies like Drishyam., that had already revealed the story through its trailer, but something ‘yet to be known’ had been kept, through its plot structure. Furthermore, the questions being asked and posed today are identical to those asked 30 years ago, so what has changed? But even though this is true, Pink (2016) stands out among them, in several aspects-
1. The story is set in a contemporary society, the characters are relevant, they are real and they have the ability to fight their fears. It is true, we are afraid to take a step forward in the face of crime; the unfair seems quite demonic.
However, not only brave girls rise up against their fears, but also an old man, who had lost all hope in himself and in his profession (due to his inappropriate psychological disposition), gets the opportunity to prove his experience, and it does. deftly, fighting her fear of him in the process. Here comes the excellence of Sree Amitabh Bachchan who subtly manages to give the expressions of him as a willing but weak person. (due to age and mental health issues) When the courtroom session starts in the second half, we expect Amitabh Bachchan to hit the prosecution straight away, but unfortunately, the elderly Mr. Sehgal has the finesse of a lawyer , but he lacks the confidence to present his case, due to the long time gap and disconnection from the practice, he gradually develops and gathers himself through the proceedings, which is something to be commended.
2. The film bridges the gap in mentalities between past and present; it falsifies the notion that people of the past generation have orthodox ideas about social norms, which is basically a promotion of patriarchy; In this film, a 74-year-old lawyer, Deepak Sehgal, believes and defends the three young women, for truth, justice and righteousness, while the majority of the so-called enlightened and enlightened contemporary society of the present, is still in the darkness of corruption assumptions, regarding what a girl should do and what she should not do.
3. The director constantly intrigues our senses with contradictions and open situations. The film has been called PINK, which is a creative contradiction to society’s operative thought process, that the color symbolizes weakness, shyness, submission, grace, elegance and anything delicate. From the tongue-in-cheek title, we know that what he’s going to show will be the complete opposite, and it IS the story of bravery, courage, righteousness, and all the qualities that mean strong. The sexual abuse of Minal is kept with a ‘?’, and I believe this has been done on purpose to keep us on our toes, the overt nature of this incident has been emphasized with the cinematography, as well as through the delivery of dialogue from the attorney. Sehgal. , who mistakenly calls it ‘raped’ first and then corrects it to ‘molested’, so that we as an audience are not sure what the fact really is, if she is raped or abused? Also the open beginning of the film, where the actual event of the night of the rock concert is never clearly shown, until the very end, tickles the audience’s thought process.
4. Unlike the other movies mentioned above, this one shows a positive start for society; justice is finally done; please note, Dahan’s pink saree, became a weak point for court proceedings, the rosy rays of sunset in Gopalpur marked the embarrassing and humiliating ordeal of an enlightening but defeated woman in Adalat O ekti Meye, But the Rosa de Minal bra made us all proud as women, she defended herself with courage and enthusiasm; she preserved lives, and in that the film is different, despite being the same.
Pink is different because it shows struggle. Minal doesn’t succumb to his fate, instead giving the brat a bottle, which is a great thing; The instinctive fear of moving, the fear of standing up, the fear of pushing and the fear of hitting hard that a woman absorbs inside her, when she is being touched by a man, has been erased in this film. A girl for the first time, she does not submit to patriarchal beliefs, but rather beats them until they bleed; the courage to break the bottle is important; when you are being attacked, the natural defense mechanism is important; the consequences will follow; Now imagine, if Minal had run out of steam in the hotel room and been raped, would that spare her some social humiliation, which she was having now, after being charged with attempted murder? No. Things would all be the same; society would mock her and question her character even then, history proves it; So why not fight and face it? Give the beating and then pay for it, instead of being trampled on and yet pay the price. Death must be of glory and not of shame; “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” -Mark Twain
Women, you must keep the fire burning within you, so that you can fight with honor before you die; fear will try to scare you, but never back down, never back down in the battle of life, use the color Pink as your strength, as your weapon to brutally decapitate all ugly minds.