Why I Think Deepika-Ranbir’s Tamasha is a Highly Sexist Film

Imtiaz Ali, you’ve offered all the complexities to Ranbir – and none to Deepika.

Dear Imtiaz Ali,

Let me do away with all the frills and fancies and tell you simply – you’ve disappointed me. Me, who watched in rapt admiration as a previously under-used Alia shone with haunting rawness in Highway. Me, who defended Rockstar (occasionally cheering for my college that played a guest part) even as others complained of its ‘complexity’.

Because that seems to be the most common complaint against you – that your tales are too ‘complex’. I’ve always disagreed. I’ve travelled with your stories quite easily, rooting for that complexity.

But you’ve lost me at Tamasha. And here’s why. Your story isn’t too complex to understand, your plot lines aren’t too difficult to deal with. You’ve just made ONE fundamental mistake: you’ve bestowed ALL of that complexity on to Ranbir Kapoor’s character and little, or none, on to Deepika’s.

Which is why Ranbir’s is a much more fleshed-out character, and certainly far, far superior to the role Deepika has.

That is why Mr Ali, I am disappointed. Allow me to explain. I have always had unflinching faith in the beauty with which you draw your woman characters (you could pass the Bechdel test with one arm tied behind your back and the other clapping a ‘cut’ board). Nargis Fakhri’s role in Rockstar was – dare I say it? – inspiring. She (or rather, her character) breathed fresh air into the man-woman relationship, taking refuge in Rumi’s lines to carry on a dalliance with a man who was not her husband – even as she wisped away to death.

Why Does Deepika Only Serve to Glorify Ranbir?

Deepika’s role, Mr Ali, serves NO purpose but to enhance and glorify Ranbir’s. She is luminous and resplendent in the movie – but that’s where the buck stops. I had just about begun to feel a sense of sorority with the girl who goes on her free-wheeling trip, has a rather unconventional kind of holiday fling and comes back to realise she’s in love with the guy. And then, suddenly, she’s not there anymore.

While Ranbir’s character is built up through flashes of his childhood – intercut with his present life – Deepika’s is one short linear journey. After the return from Corsica in fact, the only time you see her is when she’s talking to Ranbir. Or when Ranbir is about to enter the frame. Or has just exited the frame.

You know all about why Ranbir is behaving the way he does – at least you figure it out through ingeniously scattered pieces of mental algorithms throughout the flashbacks of his life. He is given a premise, a family, a coughing, old storyteller (played brilliantly by Piyush Mishra) and a job he can walk out of. I am still confused as to what Deepika actually does at her job. Sure, she attends board meetings and traipses to China and Japan for conferences, but there is pretty much no pan shots of a family or friends – or any thought process really, apart from that which she communicates to Ranbir.

The Power of Imagination is Ranbir’s, Not Deepika’s

And that is why, Imtiaz Ali, I am disappointed. Sure, I’ll admit – I didn’t love the film. It came across to me as a kaleidoscope of too many ideas – not perfectly stitched together – but I did get your point about the character Ranbir played. About why his story was important. I just wish you’d imparted some amounts of it to Deepika too.

Don’t get me wrong – Deepika Padukone is brilliant in the movie. That opening scene where she plays the storytelling clown in front of a mock audience, urging a bicentennial man played by Ranbir? Superlative. But does her character really do anything other than play a functional second fiddle to star-of-the-show, he-whose-complexes-matter Ranbir?

Of course you can argue – that role wasn’t even written for her. She pushed the boundaries of the little she had been given – and shone in it. But that’s exactly what makes me wonder – would the same movie have been made with their roles reversed? I, for one, cannot picture it.

I woke up today to one of the most powerful things I had heard in a while – Anushka Sharma in an interview with Anupama Chopra saying: “No actor in the Hindi film industry wants to do a George Clooney (in Gravity). If I have a better role than a young male actor, I know for a FACT he’s not going to do it.”

And that’s just where the problem lies. When is a role going to be crafted for a Tamasha where Deepika plays the character with angst? The character who Ranbir breaks up with, for her to dig deep into her psyche and emerge an evolved person?

Imtiaz Ali – here’s hoping.