THE CHANNEL 46
In the film, Alia Bhatt’s husband looked like the average Mumbai middle-class man. Simple, sober, and dealing with the daily pressures of his job. At first glance, no one would believe that this was the same man who threw his wife down the stairs when she was pregnant.
In the film, Alia’s husband beats her up daily (even the neighbourhood knows that this is a routine act in their household). And then apologises to her the next morning, with the excuse that he had ‘drunk a little too much last night’. And she forgives him. Only to realise that he does the same thing to her day after day, especially when he is frustrated – treating his wife as a personal punching bag.
Watching her daughter get mercilessly treated by her son-in-law – Shefali Shah decides to stand by her daughter as she teaches her husband a lesson. She could have been the typical ‘ladki ki maa’ who advises her daughter to put makeup on her bruises and continue with her life, because ‘beta, after all he’s your husband. Thoda maar diya toh kya hua?’
Alia Bhatt’s Badru is the typical middle class woman who according to society, does everything a dutiful wife must do – from cooking her husband’s favourite dishes, to seducing him with sexy lingerie. And what she also does is cover up for her husband when her own mother notices her bruise marks
Often women are asked to sacrifice their happiness for the greater good. As was the case with Badru in the film. She put her dreams of having a baby and wanting to live in a re-developed building as compared to the chawl they were living in – only because her husband didn’t want it.
THE CHANNEL 46