Lipstick Under My Burkha

Movie Review (Hindi)

Lipstick under my Burkha is a film that you take away with you after the screen time is over. Every person watching it will find it relate able. Lets take the four central characters of the movie, each representing a phase of a woman’s life.

A woman in her late 40s/ early 50s – She has been widowed for long and misses a man in her life. But dare she express her desires publicly?? No, no, no, that would be blasphemy! She is old and ought to visit satsangs. So when she wants to learn swimming she needs to shop for a swimsuit very surreptitiously and when she finds her coach handsome and desirable, she flirts with him over the phone assuming a different character.

A woman in her 30s – She is married with three small kids. Her husband has returned from the middle east and has no job now but he does have an extra marital relationship. All he wants from his wife is sex. He hardly looks at her as a thinking individual. She is a brilliant sales woman and wants to better herself at work but is told by her husband not to try to be a husband.

A woman in her 20s – She is pretty and works in a parlour. She has dreams of making it big in the business of marriage photography along with her lover. She has no qualms of having a relationship. However, her mother who is a single parent, is struggling for a livelihood and wants her daughter to get married into a decent family.

A teenager studying in the first year in college – She, in fact, gives the film its literal name as she roams around in a burkha, shoplifting from branded stores, flinging her burkha away before she reaches college, melting into the crowd of young people. She is pretty, sings well and loves to dance and dress up. At home, however, she stitches Burkhas at the family shop and lives an alternate life after her parents retire for the night.

It is funny, but if the women were to be replaced by men, there would be no story to tell!!

I rest my case!

Each actor did justice to her/his role. What a casting coup!

Alankrita Shrivastava and Prakash Jha, Thank you for making movies meaningful.