It has been more than a year that I have been wanting to watch the movie Thappad (Slap), but I’m unable to gather my courage to do so. When I watched the trailer, I instantly said, “the girl filed for a divorce JUST because of one thappad.” It took me days to unpack my own reaction to the trailer especially being a woman. It took me days to overcome the guilt of being so ignorant as a woman and days to forgive myself for the reaction that is actually “normal” in our social and culture contexts and is deeply ingrained in our minds. My own reaction jolted the very foundations of being a woman. The uneasiness of “just one slap” pushed me to see myself in the mirror of past experiences and question my reaction. I realized that my reaction was because of decades of watching many of the women in my life being assaulted physically and emotionally. If all those women had stopped men on the very first slap, their lives and my life would have been different. If women (including me) stand up and tell people who emotionally abuse them to stop, lives of many girls would be different. If women prepare their daughters and SONS to break this vicious cycle of abuse, things will be different. When women teach their daughters that A SLAP is enough, the span of misery in daughters’ lives will be shortened. If movie dialogues such as “thappad se dar nahi lugta, piyar se lugta hai” are considered as immoral and comedy shows where women (men too) are humiliated and body shamed and where audiences laugh and clap are banned, lives of many will be different. More importantly, the social and Cultural fabric will be different. It will be a fabric that does not allow abuse of any kind and form.
saminanaseem 