The Many Shades of Her Emotions…

 

Emotional Variations in Women as per the Change in their Roles.

Every human being deals with a number of emotions on a regular basis. When talking about the emotional variations in accordance with the women characters, the notable shift in their emotions is due to the different roles they go through during the story. Daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother are some of the many roles played by a woman during the course of her life. People keep building relations, and the way they feel things in every relation differs from the other. Characters in films feel real, like the people next door, when they are seen to be carrying various human complexities. They feel like us. It is even noticeable that every character is seen in different outfits and hairstyles, as they grow as a person in any film. Some of such female characters will be talked about further.

Paro (Mahie Gill) and Dev (Abhay Deol) 

Dev D

Paro loves wholeheartedly, and gets out of it with the same force. After getting married, she highlights to Dev that she is living happily and even shows him how she is a good wife. She loves Dev, and she also gets mad at him. Even though she is a typical lover type of person, she knows that the sky is not always pink. She did not keep quiet when Dev questioned her character and refused to have sex with her. She did not keep crying over it. When she meets him after marriage, she cleans up his hotel room and washes his clothes. Now, when he asks for her to have sex with him, Paro refuses to do so. Her love for him stood secondary, and she got her priorities set. Paro’s emotions vary from being madly in love to getting out of it, as Dev belittles Paro by accusing her of acts that she did not even do. This makes him realize what he has lost by not trusting her. 

 

Chanda/Leni (Kalki Koechlin) Dev D

Though Chanda is emotionally scarred, it is still hard to believe that Chanda would develop any affection for Dev. Although Chanda develops strong feelings for him, she maintains an aloofness and self-control. She is stronger than he is, and she knows it, so she always seems to have the upper hand, even when he thinks he does. He pays for her company, but she has the power. Chanda is the film’s most interesting character. She is a woman of complex motivations and impulses. She is driven to her current lifestyle by the rejection of her family but never a victim. She has a sense of acceptance and does not keep crying over all the unfortunate things that happened to her.

Nagma Khatoon (Richa Chaddha) and Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) 

Gangs of Wasseypur

Nagma is a wife, a mother, a mother-in-law, and the leading lady of the house, because of which she looks irritated constantly as there is a deal of things going on around her within every relationship. She is easy to please because she still has innocence left in her. Even the little efforts are enough to make her happy. As a wife, she has been loyal to her husband unless the one instance where she was about to have sex with Nasir and this came to the sight of Faizal. This makes her feel guilty as a mother. To forget, to forgive and to be irritable are all three aspects of any housewife and so is she.

Durga (Reema Sen) and Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpayee)

 Gangs of Wasseypur

We do not get to see other emotional dimensions of Durga more effectively. All that is able to witness is that she is manipulative, she loves Sardar Khan and when he leaves, all she could think about was to acquire his position and power by being involved in the plan to kill him for the rights of her son. Her emotions go through her love for her husband, jealousy towards Nagma, being a mother, and killing her ‘beloved’ husband.

Mohsina is an interesting character in terms of emotional layers that she possess. She is aware of her sexuality. When Faizal tries to hold her hand, she makes him understand that he must ask for her permission before touching her. She does not deny it, but asks him to respect her consent. Later when Faizal brings up that he wants to have sex with her, (sex karna chahta hoon
tumhare sath) Mohsina refuses to do so and ousts Faizal immediately. It looks like she too wants to do it, but still showing denial. She is aware, millennial and has a control on her agency, yet she refuses for premarital sex. In some way the values, ethics and the society hold her back. This is ideological contradiction portrayed through Mohsina. (Video source: YouTube)

Ruth Edscer (Kalki Koechlin) That Girl in Yellow Boots

Ruth looks tough on the outside, but there is a lot going on the inside. The grief of her 15-year-old sister Emily’s suicide, searching for her father with his letter being the only clue while surviving in the bustling city of Mumbai all by herself. Ruth is a British girl surviving in an Indian society. She is treated as an outsider wherever she goes. She is looked upon as an object and considered as sexually available. Though Ruth provides sexual services while working at a massage parlor, she craves for pure love where her consent matters and not her obligation. Her relationship is unromantic and shallow. She craves tender love and care and emotional availability throughout her journey. It is always a rush of emotions about Ruth. She loves, she cries, she cares and as a 20-year-old, she does not find things around her which are easy to digest. This film That Girl in Yellow Boots is particularly not easy to digest. Her emotional quotient travels from looking for her father whom she wants to meet, asking questions to know if he loves her, cares for her, to everything around her going numb after facing the stark reality of her father.

Rumi Bagga (Taapsee Pannu) and Vicky Sandhu (Vicky Kaushal) 

Manmarziyaan

Rumi tends to make impulsive decisions. She has the guts to carry out the decisions made in anger. For her, things mean ‘now or never’. She does not think too much while doing anything and hastily decides upon everything on the verge of ‘before it's too late’. She is not too worried about her future and lives in the current moment. She does not ponder too deeply on her choice of Vicky, nor does she initially consider Robbie from a futuristic perspective. Rumi seems to evolve emotionally by the end of the film. Her emotional journey has been through being in a careless and physically oriented relationship to understanding the need for a mature and stable marital life. 

Three out of five above-mentioned films are testosterone driven films, but still the female characters from those films have left an impact because of the complexities they behold are well portrayed. The outcome of their emotional variations have acted as a driving force in the narrative. Each character mentioned above have played various roles. From being a daughter to being a prostitute. Each one of them has unfolded layered complexities as they grow  within the story. The emotional arc gains a maturity by the end. Paro, Chanda, Nagma, Durga, Mohsina, Ruth and Rumi, all of these characters are emotionally driven further and in the beginning, emotionally driven decisions are immature, hasty and careless. Gradual growth in emotional maturity reflects in them differently as the end approaches. The consequences of emotionally made decisions and attaining stability or maturity will all be discussed in the upcoming blog posts.

(Images are sourced from Google.)