By Somya Singh:
Yes, the movie is powerful. Yes, it’s doing great at the box-office. Yes, the script is brilliant. Yes, the performance of all the actors is laudable. Yes, the way of narration gets you hooked just within a minute of the movie. And yes, the background score touches your heart.
But is that why the movie is so great?
I don’t think so.
What makes the movie so good is the fact that it’s a reflection of each and every individual in our Indian society. The movie is so relatable, that everyone sitting in the audience can associate themselves with at least one of the characters of the movie.
You could be the girl who choked because she felt like she was being asked to take the stand and ‘justify’ her actions and her “good” when a character was asked to justify why she drinks, wears ‘skimpy’ clothes, talks to men after getting acquainted to them, comes home later than is considered “normal” and/or is sexually active, or when another character’s relationship with an older man and her financial needs were understood as being cues for her ‘questionable’ character.
You could be Andrea, the North-Eastern, instead of Andrea, the Indian.
You could be the well-educated, good-looking, rich guy who thinks women need to be shown their place or any of his friends who succumb to their sexual desires at the cost of a woman’s reputation and think it’s justified.
Or did you see your reflection in the guy who surrendered to peer-pressure and ultimately joined in to make a mockery of those women?
You could be the landlord, who was brave and wise enough to shun the ideas that the society fed him and chose to trust his own instincts about the girls. (Is it a co-incidence that there weren’t many characters like him in the movie?)
Or are you one of the representatives of the Moral Police Services? Those members of the society who keep chanting “Maine to pehle hi kaha tha” (I told you so!), those who weave assumptions into a disgusting tale.
The movie dares you! It dares you to answer all these questions. It challenges each one of you to differentiate the right from the wrong. It urges you to place yourself in the shoes of those characters and explore your actions and your thoughts. It speaks to your mind and screams at your morals. It shows you what’s wrong. It tells you what’s right. But I am saddened to say, it cannot, it just cannot, change your perception, change your mindset, not unless you really want it to.
Pink is special.
Pink is a chance for us to introspect.
Pink is a chance for us to change.
Pink is a chance for us to evolve.
But please, oh please, [envoke_twitter_link]let’s not let Pink be just another chance that we missed[/envoke_twitter_link].