Pappu and the bitch

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In 1998, writer, journalist, lawyer Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel wrote Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women and posed on its cover, naked and showing the middle finger. Inside she wrote, “I intend to do what I want to do and be whom I want to be and answer only to myself: that is, quite simply, the bitch philosophy.”

Karen Lehrman, the author of The Lipstick Provisio, didn’t much care for Wurtzel’s book, but in her review in the New York Times, she conceded, “Wurtzel makes no excuse for the fact that female sexuality is a tremendous power, and she believes women should feel entitled to use it.”
Pappu Can’t Dance Saala, written and directed by Saurabh Shukla, celebrates bad-girldom as much as Bollywood will permit, and as far as the writer’s imagination will take him. Though PCDS is not a big, path-breaking film, it is very interesting.
But first, the story: Vidyadhar Acharya (Vinay Pathak) arrives in Mumbai from sleepy, sunny Benaras; Mehak Malavde (Neha Dhupia) is a tetchy, sexy thing from Kolhapur. Vidyadhar has shifted here, with the blessings of his family, to take up a job as a medical representative. Mehak, an aspiring “item girl”, is in Mumbai against the wishes of her family. She works with Palash (Rajat Kapoor), a music video director who is pretentious enough for us to assume that he is big.
Vidyadhar is decent, courteous, Hindi-type in kurtas, horn-rimmed glasses, and not really taking to mad Mumbai. Neha Dhupia establishes Mahek’s character in less than a minute, without uttering a word. And when she does open her mouth, there are welts on the face of the man she is talking to.
Vidyadhar and Mahek find “illegal” accommodation in a sarkari Sales Tax Officers’ Colony. The deal is that every time there is a vigilance raid, they have to spend the night on the terrace.
They live across the corridor but inhabit two different worlds. Mahek throws a drunk, wild party; Vidyadhar complains. When he puts on loud bhajans, she complains. They can’t stand each other, though he sometimes steals glances in her general direction. She calls him “saala psycho”, and Pappu.
Mahek gets thrown out by the vigilance people. Assuming that Vidyadhar complained about her, she breaks into his house and squats — chucking her boots here, hanging her colourful bras there. When he tries to get her to leave, she slaps him. But Vidyadhar won’t raise his voice or humiliate her. Instead, he recites Hanuman Chalisa to calm down.
This goes on every evening, when they return home from work.
During the day, we spend time with both — Vidyadhar won’t bribe a doctor to prescribe the medicines he is selling; Mahek swallows her pride, makes compromises and tries to be the “professional” she is expected to be.
She bags a big music video assignment and with the money she receives, she brightens up the apartment and gives Vidyadhar half the rent. This fixes their relationship and they start spending quality time together — on the terrace, at parties and restaurants.
One happy day Vidyadhar, now pretty much in love, decides to cook a meal for Mahek. But she comes late and goes straight to bed. Next day she calls in sick and is generally crabby. Vidyadhar can’t figure what’s wrong till his colleague suggests that it may be, you know, that time of the month. The medical representative immediately goes to buy sanitary napkins for her.
Let’s pause here. I and most of my post-feminism friends were the second generation of women in our collective family trees to go out and seek work, chase our dreams. For us one pre-requisite was that we would not behave like “girls”and do everything possible to establish that we were no different from the boys. This meant becoming “male” in our preferences and workplace behaviour. If men went queasy at the mention of “menstrual cycle”, so did we. It was not okay to slow down because you were down. We just popped a Brufen and got through those days without a whimper.
Vidyadhar, while trying to explain to Palash why Mahek couldn’t come to work, doesn’t say “womanly problems”, but shouts “menstruation”. And when he tells Mahek that it’s okay to sulk and stay in bed, I felt a little free.
The other scene which I really liked is the film’s climax that comes after a melodramatic show-down and an argument that pushes Mahek and Vidyadhar away from each other.
Vidyadhar comes to the studio where Mahek is shooting a music video, to tell her what he feels. Mahek, though listless without him, isn’t sure that this match is a good idea. “I smoke”, she says, “and I won’t quit, especially if you ask me to.” He says, “I won’t ask.” Then she gets up, drops her red satin robe to reveal a dress that’s been through the shredder twice and says, “I will never change.” He smiles and says, “Promise me that you will never change.”
Mahek goes off to pout and pirouette, while Vidyadhar sits there smiling, her red satin gown in his lap.

Perhaps, only large, greying, wise men can comfortably embrace women and their sexuality and not be threatened by it. Shammi Kapoor managed to do it in Manoranjan (a copy of Irma la Douce) in 1974 and now Saurabh Shukla.
Though his Mahek, who begins as if she’s a cross between a dominatrix and a dyke, spits out the gum, stops growling and picks gowns over grungy outfits after acquiring stardom and a soul mate, she doesn’t defend herself or what she does. To achieve what she wants, she suffers humiliation, and there is a hint that she may have slept with her dance director, but neither the film nor Vidyadhar judge her.
Though PCDS has way too many soulless and hyper songs, both Vinay Pathak and Neha Dhupia inhabit their characters with pleasure and conviction. The chemistry between their contrasting characters is not sizzling; it is warm and lovely.