Chhatriwali: Rakul Preet Singh's Remarkable Act In Crucial Conversation Around Safe Sex

Do you remember your Biology class in school, when you reached a certain chapter on reproduction and often giggled with your classmates because both you and the teacher were uncomfortable diving deeply into the topic? We'd think these discussions have now become normal across the country but not much has changed and Zee5's latest offering Chhatriwali unfolds this, and more.

“While only 1 in 10 men in India use condoms, 4 in 10 women undergo sterilisation to avoid pregnancy. Condom usage in India remains extremely low at 5.6 per cent,” highlights the film, extending a solid account of how a small town like Karnal represents a larger picture of the stigma around sex that's prevalent in India event today.

Chhatriwali is a significant extension of a very important conversation around safe sex that raises much-needed questions and surfaces some very uncomfortable answers.

Chhatriwali Review

The film does not beat around the bush. It raises questions right from the opening scene - what is so shameful about condoms? What is so disgraceful about discussing sex? Why do Indian families sweep this dialogue under the carpet?

Rakul Preet plays Sanya in the film, the daughter of a single mother. Sanya, a brilliant learner and teacher of the subject Chemistry, fights tooth and nail to land a job in Karnal but her efforts go in vain when she faces one rejection after another. As fate would have it, she comes across a job at a condom manufacturing unit. While there’s resistance, hesitation and a lot of raised eyebrows, she slowly adapts as the Quality Control Head at the unit.

Her purpose, however, is only truly defined after she marries Rishi (Sumeet Vyas). She enters a god-fearing family where discussion about sex is taboo, leave alone using condoms; to an extent that the bhaiji of the family, Rishi older brother and a Biology teacher, refrains from teaching the chapter on reproduction to senior classes.

“Condom ko condemn mat karo” 

There's a dialogue in the film from Sanya's boss and owner of the condom company (played by Satish Kaushik), "Condom ko condemn mat karo," to an employee who resigns from the unit citing the work to be shameful. If you come to think of it, it's not really his fault to think so, is it? His marriage proposal was rejected on the grounds that she worked a 'disgraceful' job. 

Isn't that what we're taught since childhood? That “sex is bad,” which, ironically, isn't all that bad behind the doors and our country taking over China as the most populous land justifies that. 

The film's second half finds the answers to these questions. The answers are not pretty, they reveal how the rot is deeper than we think, and how the societal understanding of ">sex education is way too fragile and restrictive. Men in not just Sanya's family but also the whole of Karnal do not believe in using contraceptives but are comfortable with their partners and spouses taking birth control pills every now and then irrespective of what it does to a woman's health. Even several hospitalisations and bodily complications do not help change the mindset that's so heavily ingrained across genders.

From teaching women in the village to starting sex ed classes outside of a school that does not believe in teaching reproduction, Sanya makes all efforts to change the working of society. She fails initially but gets back up again, and again.

One of my favourite dialogues in the film sets the tone for Chhatriwali. Referring to teenagers in the country, she says, "Agar samjhengey nahin toh galtiyaan karengey lekin, agar seekhengey, toh galti aur galat dono se bachengey. ( They will make grave mistakes if they remain ignorant. And having the right information at this age will save them from harbouring wrong notions, as well as summiting mistakes."

Performances

Rakul Preet aces her character, Sanya. Enacting a role that requires an in-depth understanding of a subject that is majorly taboo in the country requires a certain maturity that she brings to the table. The ease with which she played a character who justifies the narrative without beating around the bush is applaudable. We've seen her play interesting characters over the years whether it was in De De Pyaar De or Doctor G, but her performance in Chhatriwali stands as the most impeccable to date. It'll be interesting to watch her in all her upcoming projects.

Sumeet Vyas plays an adorable partner to Rakul Preet. Vyas has always played all his characters across OTT and films with a certain calmness and playing Rishi was a notable extension of his skill.

While Satish Kaushik plays an empowering boss, Dolly Ahluwalia plays a badass mom. While Rajesh Tailang, popular for his role as a cop in Delhi Crime, perfectly enacts the portrayal of a rigid and conservative brother-in-law bhaiji, how he comes around towards the end of the film shows the versatility of his acting skill. From Prachi Shah to other supporting cast, every actor fit their role perfectly.

The film's director Tejas Deoskar has delivered an important film that will surely make an impact on the Indian audience and, here's hoping, that films like these are made often and appreciated largely because they spark conversations that are majorly brushed away but never really go away.

Chhatriwali is streaming on OTT platform Zee5. 

 Views expressed by the author's own. 

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