Her Favourite Colour: How a ‘small’ incident in THAPPAD reveals the complex roots of Indian marriage and patriarchy
Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad (2020) raises questions on our conditioning and deeply-ingrained patriarchy, reminding us that abuse in a relationship comes in all forms—physical, emotional, blind to class or caste.
Editor’s Note: Contains spoilers.
It was a ‘simple’ incident.
In Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad (2020), all it takes is a slap to change the life of Amrita, played by Taapsee Pannu. Amrita is the film’s dutiful homemaker, married to Vikram (Pavail Gulati), her seemingly-perfect husband. He runs behind his dreams, and she is happy to support him from the side-lines.
Amrita operates like clockwork. Her routine is unchanged: making coffee and breakfast for her husband and serving it in bed, checking the sugar levels of her mother-in-law, and then running behind her husband to ensure that he is finishing his meals. She seems happy in her routine. In the remaining time she has to herself, she pursues her love for dance by training students.
Thappad is a call for all the women to not forget who they are. To remember their dreams, their likes and dislikes, and their ambitions, even when facing humdrum domesticity. The film also challenges the notions of that ‘ideal’ householder: a woman that adjusts or sacrifices her own dreams to make place for her partner’s.
Vikram is working vigorously on a big project that might lead the couple to shift to London. At a house party, which he throws to celebrate his achievement, he learns that he has lost out on the opportunity due to office politics. A fight with a colleague ensues and Amrita tries to intervene.
That’s when the incident happens. The slap. A deafening silence.
Much of Thappad focuses on a legal battle, the reaction to the slap itself, and the reactions of people around Amrita. But the film also showcases how she—like many other women—leave behind their own dreams to fit into their roles of a homemaker. Right from the beginning, Amrita and Vikram’s relationship is established as a demand-supply model. You can hear it in Vikram’s tone as he orders her around, sometimes to fix the printer, sometimes to get his coffee. She seems oblivious to the inequalities of her everyday life. She dreams about moving to London, to an apartment with a ‘blue door’, all without realising that the dream wasn’t ever hers to begin with.
But the slap changes everything. Amrita shifts to her parental home, asking for some time and space to get over the incident. Her father is understanding and supportive, while her mother is worried about her daughter’s breaking marriage. Her mother attempts to convince Amrita to move on from the incident, to adjust, to let it go. Every woman has to move on, she believes, small things like these keep happening in a marriage.
Amrita’s father asks his wife whether she ever had to adjust, compromise or let go of anything, allowing her to finally reveal that she, too, had her own dreams of becoming a singer. She questions where this progressive man was when she needed him.
Some of the greatest lines in the film come from the women, especially when Amrita’s mother-in-law (Tanvi Azmi) says that this mindset or behaviour is not the fault of men alone—mothers, too, she says, should teach better, instead of instructing their daughters to adjust, to only keep the family first. The mother-in-law (Azmi) has been in an abusive and disrespectful relationship, and supports her daughter-in-law’s push to get a divorce.
Vikram apologises to his boss for his behaviour. His boss, however, asks him to consider: he apologised because he knew it wasn’t okay to behave with one’s colleagues like that, but had he subconsciously thought it would be permissible to do so with his own wife? We are the victims of our own upbringing and conditioning, and the men too, perhaps, know no better.
Thappad has smaller but important parallel stories running around Amrita’s world: there is Nethra (Maya Sarao), a high-profile lawyer and her husband, played by Manav Kaul; there is the story of a house-help who faces domestic abuse from her husband; there is a single mother (Dia Mirza); and there are, of course, Amrita and Vikram’s parents, played by Azmi, Kumud Mishra and Ratna Pathak Shah.
The supporting cast is impeccable and helps to take the narrative ahead. Sinha, the director, helps to create layered characters; skillfully, he neither villainises the men nor glorifies the women. Even more than the dialogues, it’s the silences and vacant stares that haunt you and convey their message. The restrained performances by the entire cast helps take the film’s messaging a notch higher.
When Vikram sees Shivani—the single mother—drive off in a new car, he wonders about her story, how she could’ve possibly found success. The answer, Amrita says, is simple: she did so by working hard, like any other man. Amrita expresses her desire to learn driving too, to which Vikram responds, ‘Pehle parathe banana seekh barabar’. First learn how to make parathas well. It’s another ‘small’ moment, but it is a realisation that so many women have heard similar things in the past, so many of us have normalised the misogyny.
Amrita’s mother cooks her son’s favourite dish, and later, remembers what her daughter and her husband love to eat. But did anyone in the family ask her, just once, to cook what she loves? Thappad raises questions on our conditioning and deeply-ingrained patriarchy. It reminds us that abuse in a relationship comes in all forms—physical, emotional, blind to class or caste. The film also challenges the notions of that ‘ideal’ householder: a woman that adjusts or sacrifices her own dreams to make place for her partner’s.
Near the film’s end, Amrita has another ‘simple’ realisation. She remembers that her favourite colour was never blue like her imagined door in the imagined London apartment; it was yellow. We’ve seen so many women in our lives—often, our own mothers—who forget their favourite dish, who only cook what their husbands favour. Patriarchy takes over our dining-rooms, our senses, our lives. In the quest of accommodating everyone’s choices and keeping everyone happy, Thappad is a call for all the women to not forget who they are. To remember their dreams, their likes and dislikes, and their ambitions, even when facing humdrum domesticity.
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Nidhi Choksi Dhakan has worked with The Hindustan Times, The Times of India, HT Brunch, and G2. She is a regular contributor at KoolKanya.in. A Mumbaikar by heart, Dhakan shifted to Dubai in 2018. You can find her art on Instagram @sketchbook_stories and her bylines here: https://nc16ultimate.wixsite.com/nidhichoksidhakan
