Mrs

Jeo Baby’s The Great Indian Kitchen was intended for theatrical release in 2021, but likely benefitted from the covid restrictions that resulted in a digital-only release. With everyone stuck inside, it was the right time for a film about the value of domestic work. It was one of the most acclaimed films that year, and it seemed only natural to hear some months later that the Malayalam film would be remade in Hindi. What was surprising to me, though, was the director attached to the project. Arati Kadav has directed one feature (Cargo, 2019) and a handful of shorts. A slim filmography, and yet she’s one of the most distinctive voices working in Hindi cinema today. Her work till now has tended towards science-fiction with a warm, handmade quality. A remake never seemed like the right use of her capacity for whimsy and invention, though I was curious to see what direction she might take Jeo Baby’s film. Having watched Mrs., I’m hoping this is Kadav’s ‘one for them’.

Home is where the hurt is for the titular protagonist of Mrs., a Hindi-language remake of The Great Indian Kitchen. Sanya Malhotra lives the role and director Arati Kadav orchestrates her resources with striking efficiency. The result: Mrs. gets as close to being a home run as a replication of a critically acclaimed, widely viewed film still fresh in public memory can be. Mrs. makes several significant and clear deviations. The cooking area in the film, for instance, isn’t exactly like the straggly, perpetually damp kitchen in the Malayalam film. Though far less spacious, it is brighter, more airy, and less dispiriting. But the plight of the married woman consigned to this corner of the hearth is no less pitiable. A kitchen sink leaks. The problem remains unattended for days. The lady’s repeated plea to her doctor-husband to summon a plumber falls on deaf ears. The worsening situation isn’t a mere functional crisis - it also points to the state of a disintegrating marriage.

करीब चार साल पहले आई राईटर-डायरेक्टर जियो बेबी की मलयालम फिल्म ‘द ग्रेट इंडियन किचन’ को खासी चर्चा, सराहना और सफलता मिली थी। उस फिल्म में शादी के बाद ढेरों अरमान लेकर आई नई बहू सिर्फ किचन तक सिमट कर रह जाती है। उसका टीचर पति स्कूल में परिवार की अवधारणा तो समझा लेता है लेकिन अपने घर में मालिक बना रहता है। बाद में यह फिल्म तमिल में भी इसी नाम से बनी थी। अब इसी फिल्म का यह हिन्दी रीमेक ‘मिसेज़’ नाम से ज़ी-5 पर आया है। मायके में डांस करने और सिखाने वाली ऋचा अब नई बहू है। उसका पति महिलाओं का डॉक्टर है। घर के काम में हाथ तो दूर, उंगली तक नहीं बंटाता। नहाने के बाद उसका अंडरवियर तक अलमारी से पत्नी निकालती है। घर लौटता है तो घुसते ही अपना बैग पत्नी को पकड़ा देता है। कसूर उसका भी नहीं है। बचपन से ही उसने अपने पिता को यही करते और मां को उनकी चाकरी करते देखा है। ऋचा भी अब इस घर में सिर्फ किचन तक सिमट कर रह गई है। लेकिन उसे तो अपने वजूद की तलाश है। कैसे कर पाएगी वह अपने अरमानों को पूरा?

Few films have boiled my blood like Jeo Baby’s The Great Indian Kitchen, which documents the daily drudgery a nameless, newly-married young woman undergoes as patriarchy claims another soul. Every single day, it’s the same routine. She cooks and serves all the meals, sweeps and mops the floor, washes the utensils and the clothes in a household whose men are only too happy to thrust down their ideas of a domestic goddess and shun any external assistance – help or home appliances. What plays out is a portrait of misery in monotony, imagine a reverse Perfect Days, wherein director Wim Wenders discovers poetry in the fixed pattern of a toilet cleaner in Tokyo as he goes about his daily chores and banal schedule across a gentle, meditative rhythm.