All this is shown to us, with a visual of the Indian flag flying in the background. The sight of the old naked woman would have made the would-be rapists penitent and run away. That is, till you see the first sequence which clearly alludes to the 16 December gangrape and shows that the victim would have not been raped only if an old woman had stood in front of her and undressed for the rapists. It is ostensibly about womenвЂ™s freedom, feminism, a woman standing up to men (Ashish Vidyarthi as a representative of Congress and Rajit Kapur of the Muslim League and Chunky Pandey as their henchman) and about female sexual independence.Д®verything which should warm the cockles of any feministвЂ™s heart. She refuses to vacate her haveli and the film is about what ensues as a result. Begum Jaan stays in this haveli with her motley crew of sex workers, two Great Danes and two male henchmen. The film is about a brothel run by Vidya Balan as Begum Jaan, which finds itself bang in the middle of the Radcliffe Line which was to divide India and Pakistan. Let me count the ways in which this is an assault on the senses (literally as well, because all the women keep screaming and shouting at each other). And here he was, a multiple national award winner with a film helmed by Vidya Balan, who I suspect is trying to be our generationвЂ™s answer to Shabana Azmi.Д«ut all my excitement turned to horror when I saw the assault on the senses and the utter travesty to feminism, cinema and female actors in the Hindi film industry, which is Begum Jaan. Begum Jaan is a remake of MukherjiвЂ™s own Bengali film, Rajkahini. But also by the fact that here was yet another film in which women played the protagonists. I was most impressed, not just by their lack of beautification, which is a big deal in an industry in which Priyanka Chopra playing a specially-abled girl in Barfi sported waxed legs and perfectly coiffed hair. They spoke of the feminist film that it was, the almost all-female cast and how in their dedication to reality, while playing sex workers in 1947, they had stopped going to the parlour and getting themselves tweezed and waxed.

This hurts especially because a couple of weeks ago, on the stage of the fabulously branded film awards show, Fair & Lovely Zee Cine Awards, five female members of the Begum Jaan cast came on stage.

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