There are many things offensive in our Bollywood films but here are a couple that I find most obnoxious.One is the scene where a married woman dutifully touches the feet of her husband. I just hate those scenes, the bowed head and the pious look on the woman’s face, the expression of benign magnanimity on the man’s face, the righteous background music and the general feeling of virtue all around. At home I usually gnash my teeth and swear at the TV and if I could, I would personally thrash everybody involved in creating those scenes. I know it is a prevailing tradition even today in our society, and it is one of the most disgusting and hateful rituals in our culture, and one of the most offensive and disrespectful to women.
The second are those scenes where fathers proudly state that they have brought up their daughters like sons. As though bringing up a daughter as a girl is somehow demeaning and a sign of weakness. I think this too is somewhat common among fathers in India but if I were a daughter, I would feel enraged, insulted and would insist on being brought up as a girl. Boys are not special or better than girls and the sooner parents realize that, the sooner we can put an end to the hideous male chauvinism in our society.
Art imitates life and to that extent maybe my criticism of Bollywood is unfair, but they do deserve some blame for propagating and idealizing these practices in our society.So next time you see these practices in real life, or on screen, pause and remind yourself that your country is the female infanticide capital of the world.