Review: Second rate tales of the second sex

lajja: delite (social drama) cast: madhuri dixit, manisha koirala, rekha, ajay devgan, anil kapoor direction: raj kumar santoshi is this a documentary inspired by the department of women's welfare, meant for the year of the girl child, hoping to find a place of honour in the battered woman's almanac and the exploited woman's journal? if it is, then lajja is a successful venture.for it leaves no stone unturned, no feminine woe unrecorded, no womanly sorrow unattended. but if it is a feature, meant to tell a story, hook the audience, leave an impact, then... the problem with lajja lies in its over-ambition. it tries to kill them all - any and every problem that women face - in one go. hence, we have vaidehi (manisha) running away from the clutches of an insensitive nri husband (jackie shroff) who has bartered his bharatiya parampara for the playboy ways of the big bad west. in her sojourns towards safety, the traditional indian wife comes in contact with traditional indian women from different walks of life. the only common strain between them happens to be their ubiquitous state of exploitation. maithili (mahima chaudhary) is a woman in love who walks out of her marriage ceremony because the groom is too greedy. they call it dowry. janki (madhuri dixit) is the 'liberated' - she smokes, drinks and has pre-marital sex - stage artist who tries to rewrite the ramayana, this time from the point of view of sita. not only does she refuse to give the agni pariksha, she even goes a step further and asks rama to give one instead. needless to say, she becomes a victim of public wrath and a male-dominated mindset. ram dulari (rekha) is the village midwife who battles centuries of lop-sided sociology with her broken english and her 'bindaas' (fearless) attitude. only to fall prey to a wicked game of caste politics mingled with lust. ram dulari goes the siyadulari - the real-life protagonist who has supposedly inspired the film - way. she is brutally raped and burnt by the upper caste honchos when her son elopes with their daughter. in this sea of sad women, there are a handful of men too...shadowy figures who come and go as stray wisps in the female stories. there is bad guy jackie who has nothing more to do than run across the length and breadth of india in his designer suits, screaming 'damn!' each time his wife eludes him and heads for another 'bechaari naari' buddy. there is anil kapoor who plays the gentleman crook with a heart of gold. a true woman's man who knows what women want and is willing to give up everything to see them happy, smiling and well-settled. even if they happen to be the road-side sex worker who fights for her due from strangers and thugs. and finally, there is ajay devgan, the desi robin hood who believes in just one credo. all women are my mother and sisters, he bellows and bashes up anybody who believes they aren't. in case, his cudgels don't work, he pulls out the scythe and simply beheads...another woman's man, you see. sorrow, violence and vengeance: lajja is weighed down by its own laboured vision. and if that isn't wearisome enough, there is raj kumar santoshi's final denouement. what's the way out, according to the 'concerned' film maker? 'maro-maro,' scream a horde of women after manisha renders a long diatribe, punctuated with tears and hysteria on a public podium. they pull out their rubber chappals, presumably to set the gender equilibrium right.