Posted:
would you like to interview her too?" *snigger*
Given that today's episode in Satyamev Jayate dealt with Domestic Violence, I thought it would be interesting to see what would come out of an analysis both SMJ's points on the issue as well as what has been seen in DSDD so far.
The above quote was from one of the one-line interviews taken by the SMJ team around cities, asking a number of men whether they thought 'maar-peet' of their wives was justified. As far as my interpretation of this episode goes, I felt the crux of Aamir Khan's argument had to do with doing away the notion that the husband is a god-figure in the family; that what he does is condoned because he is automatically deified. That what he does is allowed because patriarchy does not allow the woman to feel that she is an independent being - she is a subject at the mercy of whichever male figure is the head in her family -- be it her father, her brother, her husband or her son.
In a lot of ways, I do see this attitude in Viraaj often. When Jhanvi has memories of Viraaj, it's the terror and the humiliation we see. When Viraaj sees her in his memories, Jhanvi is a subject who bends over backwards doing things for him, fear written in bold letters on her face. She fears him the way she would fear an angry god. Hearing the Patidev argument, I was reminded in a lot of ways of Viraaj's conversations with the god in his puja room: especially of his anger that God dared to take Jhanvi away even though he was her Parmeshwar, as well as his description of the Viraasleela, which I laughed at and felt disturbed by, because it amazed me that he could punish Jhanvi for what he thought was interest in another man, but didn't mind speaking of a 'raasleela' with another woman so soon after her supposed death.
The other thing that struck me was a point that SMJ didn't highlight, but that I realized later...how other forms of media - ads, literature, movies, songs, daily soaps - help shape the way people think on this issue. How condoning eve-teasing through a 'ladki-chedna' song in a romantic film finds its way into the streets, how stalking is brushed away by the statement 'but it's true love'! How does a soap like DSDD-SB fit into this? I think of this question, remember some of the vitirol I see towards Jhanvi, and the starry-eyed fascination with Viraaj, on the LifeOk facebook pages, and shudder. That's all I can really say.
